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BEMBO 


A TALE OF ITALY 


BERNARD CAPES 


NEW YORK 

E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY 

31 WEST TWENTY-THIRD STREET 
1906 


LIBRARY of CONGRESS 
TwoCooies Received 

MAY 23 1906 



Copyright, 1906 
E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY 


Published, May, 1906. 


PREFACE 


T here is nothing of fact in the following story of a child- 
propagandist interpreting, and embodying in himself, 
the spirit of love, but the fundamental fact of nature. Bembo 
derives from no legend but the legend, mystic and unpro- 
nounceable, of the great human memory, which connects us, 
mortal exiles, bond-slaves in Egypt, with a state and time 
before ever love knew betrayal of its innocence. Any who, 
for his own sake, are in sympathy with this proselytizing 
Eros, will turn at least a considerate ear to his creed of re- 
clamation. The whole cosmic system moves in cycles; 
wherefore it is plain that to progress is necessarily to recover, 
in the course of time, the beginning of things. The orbit of 
the spark of life being interrupted by death, the spark leaps 
from pole to pole, and encounters again its origin. By the 
same token, each man’s future is his past, and the burden 
which he carries with him, whether of good or evil, shall be 
the measure of his happiness in his restoration to that his 
first kingdom. 


BEMBO, A TALE OF ITALY 


CHAPTER I 

O N a hot morning, in the year 1476 of poignant memory, 
there drew up before an osteria on the Milan road a 
fair cavalcade of travellers. These were Messer Carlo Tanti 
and his inamorata, together with a suite of tentmen, pages, 
falconers, bed-carriers, and other personnel of a migratory lord 
on his way from the cooling hills to the Indian summer of 
the plains. The chief of the little party, halting in advance 
of his fellows, lifted his plumed scarlet biretta with one 
strong young hand, and with the other, his reins hanging 
loose, ran a cluster of swarthy fingers through his black hair. 

“O little host!” he boomed, blaspheming — for all good 
Catholics, conscious of their exclusive caste, swore by God 
prescriptively — “ O little host, by the thirst of Christ’s pas- 
sion, wine!” 

” He will bring you hyssop — by the token, he will,” mur- 
mured the lady, who sat her white palfrey languidly beside 
him. She was a slumberous, ivory-faced creature, warm 
and insolent and lazy; and the little bells of her bridle 
tinkled sleepily, as her horse pawed, gently rocking her. 

The cavalier grunted ferociously. ‘‘Let me see him!” 
and, bonneting himself again, sat with right arm akimbo 
glaring for a response to his cry. He looked on first ac- 
quaintance a bully and profligate — which he was ; but, for 


2 


BEMBO 


his times, with some redeeming features. His thigh, in its 
close velvet hose, and the long blade which hung at it, 
seemed somehow in a common accord of steel and muscle. 
His jaw was underhung, his brows were very thick and 
black, but the eyes beneath were good-humored, and he 
had a great dimple in his cheek. 

A murmur of voices came from the inn, but no answer 
whatever to the demand. The building, glaring white as a 
rock rolled into the plains from the great mountains to the 
north, had a little bush of juniper thrust out on a staff above 
its door. It looked like a dry tongue protruded in derision, 
and awoke the demon in Messer Tanti. He turned to a 
page: — “ Ercole! ” he roared, pointing; “ set a light there, 
and give these hinds a lesson! ” 

The lady laughed, and, stirring a little, watched the page 
curiously. But the boy had scarcely reached the ground 
when the landlord appeared bowing at the door. The 
cavalier fumed. 

“ Ciacco — hog!” he thundered: *‘did you not hear us 
call?” 

“ Illustrious, no.” 

“ Where were your ears ? Nailed to the pillory ? ” 

“Nay, Magnificent, but to the utterances of the little 
Parablist of San Zeno.” 

“ O hog! now by the Mass, I say, they had been better 
pricked to thy business. O ciacco, I tell thee thy Parablist 
was like, in another moment, to have addressed thee out of 
a burning bush. What ! I would drink, swine ! And 
harkee, somewhere from those deep vats of thine the per- 
fume of an old wine of Cana rises to my nostrils. I say no 
more. Despatch!” 

The landlord, abasing himself outwardly, took solace of a 
private curse as he turned into the shadow of his porch — 

“These skipjacks of the Sforzas! limbs of a country 
churl!” 


A TALE OF ITALY 


3 


Something lithe and gripping sprang upon his back as he 
muttered, making him roar out; and the chirrup of a great 
cricket shrilled in his ear — 

“ Biting limbs! clawing, hooking, scoring limbs! ha-ha, 
hee-hee, ho-bir-r-r-r! ” 

Boniface, sweating with panic, wriggled to shake off his 
incubus. It clung to him toe and claw. Slewing his gross 
head, he saw, squatted upon his shoulders, a manikin in 
green livery, a monstrous grasshopper in seeming. 

‘‘Messer Fool,” he gurgled — “dear my lord’s most 
honored jester!” (he was essaying all the time to stagger 
with his burden out of earshot) — “ prithee spare to damn a 
poor fellow for a hasty word under provocation! Prithee, 
sweet Messer Fool! ” 

The little creature, sitting him as a frog a pike, hooked its 
small talons into the comers of his eyes. 

“ Provocation! ” it laughed, rocking— “ provocation by his 
grandness to a guts! If I fail to baste thee on a spit for it, 
call me not Cicada! ” 

“ Mercy! ” implored the landlord, staggering and groping. 

“ Nothing for nothing. At what price, tunbelly ? ” 

The landlord clutched in his blindness at the post of a 
descending stair. 

“ The best in my house.” 

‘ ‘ What best, paunch ? ” 

“ Milan cheese— boiled bacon. Ah, dear Messer Cicada, 
there is a fat cold capon, for which I will go fasting to 
thee.” 

“ And what wine, beast? ” 

“ What thou wilt, indeed.” 

The jester spurred him with a vicious heel. 

“ Away, then! Sink, submerge, titubate, and evanish into 
thy crystal vaults! ” 

“ Alas, I cannot see! ” 

The rider shifted his clutch to the fat jowls of his victim, 


4 


BEMBO 


who thereupon, with a groan, descended a rude flight of 
steps at a run, and brought up with his burden in a cool 
grotto. Here were casks and stoppered jars innumerable; 
shelves of deep blue flasks; lolling amphorae, and festoons 
of cobwebs drunk with must. Cicada leapt with one spring 
to a barrel, on which he squatted, rather now like a green 
frog than a. grasshopper. His face, lean and leathery, looked 
as if dipped in a tan-pit; his eyes were as aspish as his 
tongue; he was a stunted, grotesque little creature, all vice 
and whipcord. 

“ Despatch! he shrilled. Thy wit is less a desert than 
my throat.” 

‘ ‘ Anon I ’ ’ mumbled the landlord, and hurried for a flask. 
“ Tet thy tongue roll on that,” he said, “ and call me grate- 
ful. As to the capon, prithee, for my bones’ sake, let me 
serve thy masters first.” 

The jester had already the flask at his mouth. The wine 
sank into him as into hot sand. 

“ Go,” he said, stopping a moment, and bubbling — “ go, 
and damn thy capon; I ask no grosser aliment than this.” 

The landlord, bustling in a restored confidence, filled a 
great bottle from a remote jar, and armed with it and 
some vessels of twisted glass, mounted to daylight once 
more. Messer Lanti, scowling in the sun, cursed him for a 
laggard. 

“Magnificent!” pleaded the man, “the sweetest wine, 
like the sweetest meat, is near the bone.” 

“ Deep in the ribs of the cellars, meanest, O ciacco ? ” 

He took a long draught, and turned to his lady. 

“ Trust the rogue, Beatrice; it is, indeed, near the marrow 
of deliciousness.” 

She sipped of her glass delicately, and nodded. The 
cavalier held out his for more. 

“ Malvasia, hog?” 

“ Malvasia, most honored; trod out by the white feet of 


A TALE OF ITALY 5 

prettiest contadina, and much favored, by the token, of the 
Abbot of San Zeno yonder.” 

Messer Lanti looked up with a new good-humor. The 
party was halted in a great fiat basin among hills, on one of 
the lowest of which, remote and austere, sparkled the high, 
white towers of a monastery. 

There,” he said, signifying the spot to his companion 
with a grin; “ hast heard of Giuseppe della Grande, Beatrice, 
the father of his people ? ’ ’ 

“ And not least of our own little Parablist, Madonna,” 
put in the landlord, with a salutation. 

“ Plague, man! ” cried Land; “ who the devil is this Para- 
blist you keep throwing at us ? ” 

“ They call him Bernardo Bembo, my lord. He was 
dropped and bred among the monks — some by-blow of a 
star, they say, in the year of the great fall. He was found 
at the feet of Mary’s statue; and, certes, he is gifted like an 
angel. He mouths parables as it were prick-songs, and is 
esteemed among all for a saint.” 

“ A fair saint, i’ faith, to be carousing in a tavern.” 

“ O my lord! he but lies here an hour from the sun, on his 
way, this very morning, to Milan, whither he vouches he 
has had a call. And for his carousing, spring water is it all, 
and the saints to pay, as I know to my cost.” 

“ He should have stopped at the rill, methinks.” 

“ He will stop at nothing,” protested the landlord humbly; 
“ nay, not even the rebuking by his parables of our most 
illustrious lord, the Duke Galeazzo himself.” 

Land guffawed. 

“ Thou talkest treason, dog. What is to rebuke there ? ” 

“ What indeed. Magnificent? Set a saint, / say, to catch 
a saint.” 

The other laughed louder. 

The right sort of saint for that, I trow, from Giuseppe’s 
loins.” 


0 


BEMBO 


“ Nay, good my lord, the I^ord Abbot himself is no less a 
saint.” 

” What! ” roared Banti, “ saints all around! This is the 
right hagiolatry, where I need never despair of a niche for 
myself. I too am the son of my father, dear Messer Ciacco, 
as this Parablist is, I ’ll protest, of your Abbot, whose piety 
is an old story. What! you don’t recognize a family like- 
ness? ” 

The landlord abased himself between deference and 
roguery. 

“ It is not for me to say. Magnificent. I am no expert to 
prove the common authorship of this picture and the other.” 

He lowered his eyes with a demure leer. Honest Lanti, 
bending to rally him, chuckled loudly, and then, rising, 
brought his whip with a boisterous smack across his shoul- 
ders. The landlord jumped and winced. 

“Spoken like a discreet son of the Church!” cried the 
cavalier. 

He breathed out his chest, drained his glass, still laugh- 
ing into it, and, handing it down, settled himself in his 
saddle. 

“ And so,” he said, “ this saintly whelp of a saint is on 
his way to rebuke the lord of Sforza ? ’ ’ 

“With deference, my lord, like a younger Nathan. So 
he hath been miscalled — I speak nothing from myself. The 
young man hath lived all his days among visions and voices; 
and at the last, it seems, they ’ve spelled him out Galeazzo — 
though what the devil the need is there ? as your Magnifi- 
cence says. But perhaps they made a mistake in the spell- 
ing. The blessed Fathers themselves teach us that the best 
holiness lacks education.” 

Madonna laughed out a little. “ This is a very good 
fool! ” she murmured, and yawned. 

“I don’t know about that,” said Tanti, answering the 
landlord, and wagging his sage head. “I’m not the most 


A TALE OF ITALY 7 

pious of men myself. But tell us, sirrah, how travels his 
innocence ? ” 

“ On foot, my lord, like a prophet’s.” 

“ ’T will the sooner lie prone.” He turned to my lady. 
‘ ‘ Wouldst like to add him to Cicada and thy monkey, and 
carry him along with us ? ” 

“Nay,” she said pettishly, “ I have enough of monstrosi- 
ties. Will you keep me in the sun all day ? ” 

“ Well,” said Lanti, gathering his reins, “ it puzzles me 
only how the Abbot could part thus with his discretion.” 

“ Nay, Illustrious,” answered the landlord, “ he was in a 
grievous pet, ’t is stated. But, there! prophecy will no more 
be denied than loye. A’ must out or kill. And so he had 
to let Messer Bembo go his gaits with a letter only to this 
monastery and that, in providence of a sanctuary, and one 
even, ’t is whispered, to the good Duchess Bona herself. 
But here, by the token, he comes.” 

He bowed deferentially, backing apart. Messer Lanti 
stared, and gave a profound whistle. 

“ O, indeed!” he muttered, showing his strong teeth, 
“ this Giuseppe propagates the faith very prettily! ” 

Madam Beatrice was staring too. She expressed no 
further impatience to be gone for the moment. A young 
man, followed by some kitchen company adoring and obse- 
quious, had come out by the door, and stood regarding her 
quietly. She had expected some apparition of austerity, 
some lean, neurotic friar, wasting between dogmatism and 
sensuality. And instead she saw an angel of the breed that 
wrestled with Jacob. 

He was so much a child in appearance, with such an as- 
pect of wonder and prettiness, that the first motion of her 
heart towards him was like the leap of motherhood. Then 
she laughed, with a little dye come to her cheek, and eyed 
him over the screen of feathers she held in her hand. 

He advanced into the sunlight. 


8 


BEMBO 


“ Greeting, sweet Madonna,” he said, in his grave young 
voice, “and fair as your face be your way!” and he was 
offering to pass her. 

She could only stare, the bold jade, at a loss for an answer. 
The soft umber eyes of the youth looked into hers. They 
were round and velvety as a rabbit’s, with high, clean-pen- 
cilled brows over. His nose was short and pretty broad at 
the bridge, and his mouth was a little mouth, pouting as a 
child’s, something combative, and with lips like tinted wax. 
Tike a girl’s his jaw was round and beardless, and his hair 
a golden fleece, cut square at the neck, and its ends brittle 
as if they had been singed in fire. His doublet and hose 
were of palest pink; his bonnet, shoes, and mantlet of cypress- 
green velvet. Rose-colored ribbons, knotted into silver 
buckles, adorned his feet; and over his shoulder, pendent 
from a strand of the same hue, was slung a fair lute. He 
could not have passed, by his looks, his sixteenth summer. 

Tanti pushed rudely forward. 

“ A moment, saint troubadour, a moment! ” he cried. “ It 
will please us, hearing of your mission, to have a taste of 
your quality.” 

The youth, looking at him a little, swung his lute forward 
and smiled. 

“ What would you have, gracious sir ? ” he said. 

“ What? Why, prophesy us our case in parable.” 

I know not your name nor calling.” 

“ A pretty prophet, forsooth. But I will enlighten thee. 
I am Carlo Tanti, gentleman of the Duke, and this fair lady 
the wife of him we call the Count of Casa Caprona.” 

The boy frowned a little, then nodded and touched the 
strings. And all in a moment he was improvising the 
strangest ditty, a sort of cantafable between prose and song: 

“ A lord of little else possessed a jewel. 

Of his small state incomparably the crown. 

But he, going on a journey once, 


A TALE OF ITALY 


9 


To his wife committed it, saying, 

* This trust with you I pledge till my return ; 

See, by your love, that I redeem my trust.’ 

But she, when he was gone, thinking ‘ He will not know,’ 
Procured its exact fellow in green glass, 

And sold her lord’s gem to one who bid her fair ; 

Then, conscience-haunted, wasted alf those gains 
Secretly, without enjoyment, lest he should hear and wonder. 
But he returning, she gave him the bauble. 

And, deceived, he commended her ; and, shortly after, dying, 
Left her that precious jewel for all dower. 

Bequeathing elsewhere the residue of his estate. 

Now, was not this lady very well served. 

Inheriting the whole value, as she had appraised it. 

Of her lord’s dearest possession ? 

Gentles, Dishonor is a poor estate.” 

Half-chanting, half-talking, to an accompaniment of soft- 
touched chords, he ended with a little shrug of abandonment, 
and dropped the lute from his fingers. His voice had been 
small and low, but pure; the sweet thrum of the strings had 
lifted it to rhapsody. Messer Lanti scratched his head. 

“ Well, if that is a parable! ” he puzzled. “ But suppos- 
ing it aims at our case, why — Casa Caprona is neither poor 
nor dead; and as to a jewel ” 

He looked at Madam Beatrice, who was frowning and 
biting her lip. 

“Why heed the peevish stuff?*’ she said. “Will you 
come? I am sick to be moving.” 

Carlo was suddenly illuminated. 

“ O, to be sure, of course! ” he ejaculated — “ the jewel — ” 

“ Hold your tongue! ” cried the lady sharply. 

The honest blockhead went into a roar of laughter. 

“ He has touched thee, he has touched thee! And these 
are his means to convert the Duke! By Saint Ambrose, 
*t will be a game to watch! I swear he shall go with us.” 

“ Not with my consent,” cried madam. 


lO 


BEMBO 


Carlo, chuckling tormentingly, looked at her, then doffed 
his cap mockingly to the boy. 

“Sweet Messer Bembo,” he said, “I take your lesson 
much to heart, and pray you gratefully — as we are both for 
Milan, I understand — to give us the honor of your company 
thither. I am in good standing with the Duke, I say, and 
you would lose nothing by having a friend at court. Those 
half-boots” — he glanced at the pretty pumps — “could as 
ill afford the penalties of the road as your innocence its 
dangers.” 

“ I have no more fear than my divine Master,” said the 
boy boldly, “ in carrying His Gospel of love.” 

“ Well for you,” said Carlo, with a grin of approval for 
his spirit; “ but a gospel that goes in silken doublet and 
lovelocks is like to be struck dumb before it is uttered. ’ ’ 

“As to my condition, sir,” said the boy, “ I dress as for a 
feast, our Master having prepared the board. Are we not 
redeemed and invited ? We walk in joy since the Resurrec- 
tion, and Limbo is emptied of its gloom. The kingdom of 
man shall be love, and the government thereof. Preach 
heresy in rags. ’T was the Lord Abbot equipped me thus, 
my own stout heart prevailing. ‘Well, they will encounter 
an angel walking by the road,’ quoth he, ‘ and, if they 
doubt, show ’em thy white shoulder-knobs, little Bernardino, 
and they will see the wings sprouting underneath like the 
teeth in a baby’s gums.’ ” 

He was evidently, if sage or lunatic, an amazing child. 
The rough libertine was quite captivated by him. 

“Well, you will come with us, Bernardino?” said he; 
“ for with a cracked skull it might go hard with you to 
prove your shoulder-blades.” 

“ I will come, lord, to reap the harvest where I have sowed 
the grain.” 

He looked with a serene severity at the countess. 

“ Shalt take thee pillion, Beatrice,” shouted Lanti. “ Up, 


A TALE OF ITALY 


II 


pretty troubadour, and recount her more parables by the 
way.” 

“ May I die but he shall not,” cried the girl. 

“ He shall, I say.” 

“ I will bite, and rake him with my nails.” 

“ The more fool you, to spoil a saint! Reproofs come not 
often in such a guise as this. Up, Bernardino, and parable 
her into submission! ” 

She made a show of resisting, in the midst of which Bembo 
won to his place deftly on the fore-saddle. At the moment 
of his success, the fool Cicada sprang from the tavern door, 
and, lurching with wild, glazed eyes, leapt, hooting, upon the 
crupper of the beast, almost bringing it upon its haunches. 
With an oath Lanti brought down his whip with such fury 
that the fool rolled in the dust. 

” Drunken dog! ” he roared, and would have ridden over 
the writhing body, had not Bembo backed the white palfrey 
to prevent him. 

“Thou strik’st the livery, not the man!” he cried. 
“ Hast never thyself been drunk, and without the excuse of 
this poor fool to make a trade of folly ? ” 

Messer Lanti glared, then in a moment laughed. The 
battered grasshopper took advantage of the diversion to rise 
and slink to the rear. The next moment the whole caval- 
cade was in motion. 


CHAPTER II 



‘HEY travelled on till sundown through the green plains; 


1 and, for one good hour dating from their start, not a 
word would Madame Beatrice utter. Then she gave out — 
Messer Carlo being a distance in advance — but with no grace 


at all. 


“You are an ill horseman. Saint. I am near jogged from 
my seat.” 

“ Put thine arms about me.” 

“Nay, I am not holy enough.” 

She was silent again, for five minutes. 

“ Your lute bangs my nose.” 

He shifted it. She held her peace during two minutes. 

“ Who taught you to play it. Saint? ” 

“ It was one of the Fathers. What would it profit you to 
know which ? ’ ’ 

“ Nothing at all. I trow he was a good master to that 
and your gospel.” 

“ My gospel? ” 

“Ay, of love. He has made you worldly-wise for a saint. 
Hast ever before been beyond thy walls? ” 

“ Of course.” 

“And studied this and that? Experience, methinks, is 
the right nurse for such a creed. What made you accuse 
me of dishonor? ” 

“I did not.” 

“ Nay, is that to be a saint ? ” 

“ Whom the shoe fits, let her wear it.” 


12 


A TALE OF ITALY 


13 


* * Bernardo! Where got you the shoe f ’ ^ 

** Does it fit, I say ? ” 

“ I fear me ’t was in some bagnio.” 

“ Where you had dropped it ? For shame! ” 

A rather long pause. 

‘ ‘ I will not be angry— just yet. Where got you the shoe, 
I say ? An eavesdropper is well equipped for a prophet.” 

I am no eavesdropper.” 

* ‘ Who enlightened you ? ’ ’ 

“ Your cicisbeo.” 

‘‘Under that title?” 

” Nay; it is not the devil’s policy to call himself devil.” 

A shorter pause. 

“ But you had heard of me ? ” 

“ Nothing escapes the Church’s hearing. Besides, Messer 
Lanti’s summer lodge is within call, one may say, of San 
Zeno.” 

“ You are daring. Dost know in what high favor he 
stands with the Duke ? ” 

“ Else how could he have compassed Uriah’s dismissal to 
the wars?” 

Silence, and then a sigh. 

“ Whom do you mean by Uriah ? ” 

“ Thy lord, the Count of Casa Caprona.” , 

“ He is a soldier, and an old man.” 

“ Didst covenant with his age in thy marriage vows? ” 

“ Bernardino, I am very sleepy.” 

“ Sleep, then, and forget thyself, and awake, another.” 

She sighed, and put her arms softly about him and her 
cheek against his shoulder. Messer Land, falling back, saw 
her thus, with closed eyes; and laughed, and then frowned, 
and cried boisterously — 

“ Hast converted her, Parablist ? Art a saint indeed ? ” 

He spurred forward again, with a discontented look, and 
madam opened her eyes, 


14 


BEMBO 


“ What gossips are thine old monks, Bernardino; and 
what hypocrites, denouncing the license they example! ” 

“ I know not what you mean.” 

” Are they all saints, then, in San Zeno?” 

‘ ‘ That is for Rome to say. It is a good law which lays 
down this wine of sanctity to mature. In a hundred years 
we shall know what stood the test.” 

“ Ah me! And I am but seventeen. Will you speak for 
your Abbot? ” 

“ Ay, like a dear son.” 

“ Is he your father, Bernardo? ” 

“ Is he not the father of us all ? ” 

“ Maybe. But ’t is of Benjamin I ask. Now, he is a 
strange father, methinks, to bid his Benjamin, thus ap- 
parelled, on a wild goose chase.” 

“ He could not discount the voices.” 

“What voices?” 

The boy lifted his face and eyes to the heavens, and low- 
ered them again with no answer but a sigh of rapture. 

“ So ? And did the voices bid thee wear a velvet mantlet 
and roses to thy shoes ? ’ ’ whispered the girl, with a tiny 
chuckle. 

“ They said, ‘ Not in cockle shells, but a plume, goes the 
Pilgrim of Love,’ ” answered Bembo. “As I am and have 
been, God finds me fitting in His sight.” 

“ And the Father Abbot, I wot? ” 

“ Yes: ‘ Since,’ says he, ‘ Christ bequeathed His Kingdom 
to beauty.’ ” 

“ And you have inherited it ? I think I will be your sub- 
ject, Bernardo.” 

“ I hope so. Madonna.” 

He spoke perfectly gravely, and made her a little courtly 
gesture backwards. 

“ Well,” said she, “ had I been Father Abbot, I had put 
this pet of my fancy in a cage.” 


A TALE OF ITALY 


15 


“You know not of what you speak,” he answered seri- 
ously. “ God works great ends with little instruments. 
The puny bee is yet the very fairy midwife of the forests. 
I should have broke my heart had he denied me.” 

“ It would have saved others, alack! ” 

‘ ‘ What do you mean ? ’ ’ 

“ Nothing at all. Will you sing me another parable, 
Bernardo ? ’ ’ 

“Ay, Madonna; and on what subject ? The woman taken 
in adultery ? ” 

“ If you like; and whom Christ forgave.” 

And He said : and sin no more' ” 

She began to weep softly. 

“It is shocking to be so abused for a little thing. I would 
you were back with your monks.” 

He sighed. 

“Ah! ” she murmured, still weeping, “ that this bee had 
been content to remain a pander to his flowers! To dup hell’s 
door with a reed! You know not to what you have engaged 
yourself, my poor boy.” 

“ To Christ, His service of Love,” he said simply. 

“ Go back, go back! ” she cried in pain. “ There are ten 
thousand sophisters to interpret that word according to their 
lusts. Convert Galeazzo? Convert the brimstone lake from 
burning! Dost know the manner of man he is ? ” 

“ Else why am I here ? ” 

“Ay, but his moods, his passions, his nameless, shameless 
deeds ? He hath no pity but for his desires; no mercy but 
through his caprices. To cross him is to taste the rack, the 
fire, the living burial. He is possessed. Some believe him 
Caligula reincarnate — an atavism of that dreadful stock. 
And dost think to quench that furnace with a parable? 
Unless, indeed — Go back, little Bembo, and waste thy pas- 
sion for reform on thy monks.” 

“ Madonna,” he said, “ I obey the voices. I shall not be 


i6 


BEMBO 


let to perish, since Christ died to save His world to loveli- 
ness.” 

It was the early rapture of the Renaissance, penetrating 
like an April song into these newly reclaimed lands. The 
wind blew from Florence, and all the peaceful vales, so long 
trodden into a bloody mire, were awakening to the ecstasy 
of the Promise. That men interpreted according to their 
lights — lights burning fast and passionate in most places, 
but in a few quiet and holy. The breed of German ban- 
dits, of foreign mercenaries, was swept away. Gone was 
the whole warring race of the Visconti, and in its place the 
peasant Sforza had set a guard about the land of his fierce 
adoption, that he might till and graft and prosper in peace. 
Italy had asserted itself the inheritance of its children, the 
court of God’s Vicegerent, the chosen land of Tove’s gospel. 
That, too, men interpreted according to their lights. “ We 
are all the vineyard of Rome,” said the little Parablist. 
Alas! he thought Rome the Holj^ of Holies, and his father 
a saint. But his father, who adored him, had committed 
him, with his blessing, to this mad romance! Such were 
the paradoxes of the Gospel of Love. 

Beatrice spoke no more, and they rode on in silence. 
About evening they came into a pleasant dell, where there 
was a level sward among rocks; and a little stream, running 
down a stairway of stones, dropped laughing, like a child 
going to bed, into the quiet of a rushy pool. Great chest- 
nuts clothed the slopes, and made a mantle, powdered with 
stars, to the setting sun. It was a very nest for love. 

Messer Tanti, halting, commanded the green tents to be 
pitched on the grass. Then, with a stormy scowl and a 
mockery of courtesy, he came to dismount his lady. 

“ Now,” says he, as he got her aside, “ if I do not show 
thy saint to be a petticoat, my hug of thee is like to prove a 
bear’s.” 

” What! ” she said, amazed: “ Bernardo?” 


A TALE OF ITALY 


17 


He ground his teeth. 

“ I do not mark his pink cheeks for nothing.” 

“ Well, an he be,” she retorted, coldly, ” I am liker, than 
if he be not, to lose my gallant.” 

” That depends,” he growled, ” upon whom your fickle- 
ship honors with that title”; and he strode away, calling 
roughly to Bembo, “Art for a bath. Saint, before supper? ” 

“Why, gladly, Carlo,” said the boy, “so we may be 
private.” 

They went down to the pool together, and stripped and 
entered. Lanti saw a Ganymede, and was not pleased 
thereat. He came to supper in a ver}’- bad humor, w^hich 
no innocent artifice of his guest could allay. The kill that 
day of their falcons — partridges, served in their own feathers, 
and stuffed with artichokes and truffles — was tough; the 
pears and peaches were sour; the confetti savorless and of 
stale design. He rated his cook, cursed his servitors, and 
drank more than he ate. When the disagreeable meal was 
ended^ he strode ruffling away, saying he desired his own 
sole company, which it were well that all should respect. 
Bembo saw him go, with a sigh and a smile. 

“ Good, honest soul,” quoth he, “ that already wakes to 
the reckoning! ” 

Madam misunderstood him, and pressed a little closer, 
with a happy echo of his sigh. Her eyes were soft with 
wine and passion. She had no precedent for doubting her 
influence on the moment she chose to make her own. 

“ The reckoning! ” she murmured. “ But I am wax in 
thy hands, pretty Saint. Shalt confess me, and take what 
toll thou wilt of my sins? ” 

Her hand settled light as a bird on his. 

“ Sing to me, Bernardino,” she whispered wooingly, “ sith 
the cloud is gone from our moon, and I am in the will to 
love.” 

He shot one little startled glance her way; then slowly 


i8 


BEMBO 


slung round his lute, and, touching the strings pensively, 
melted into the following reproach: 

“ Speak low ! What do you ask, false love ? Speak low ! 

Sin cannot speak too low. 

The night-wind stealing to thy bosom, 

The dead star, dropping like a blossom, 

Less voiceless be than thou ! 

“Low, lower yet, false love, if to confess 

What guilt, what shameful need? 

God, who can hear the budding grass. 

And flake kiss flake in the snowy pass. 

Your secret else will heed. 

“ Ah ! thou art silent, not from love, but fear. 

And true love knows no fear. 

Creeping, soft-footed, in the dust. 

It is not love, but conscious lust. 

Which dreads that God shall hear.” 

He rose swiftly beside her, while she sat, dumbly biting a 
lock of her own hair. The frown of outraged passion was 
in her eyes. What had the fool dared in rejecting her! 

To touch the perfumed essence of sin with a rebuke which 
was like a caress — that, pace his monks, was Bernardo’s ren- 
dering of the Gospel; and who shall say that, in its girlish 
tenderness, its earnest emotionalism, it was not the most 
dangerous method of all? Not every adulterous woman is 
fit to meet the gentle fate of Christ’s. It is not always well 
to doctor too much kindness with more. Surfeit, surely, is 
not safely cured, unless by a God, with sugar-plums. 

“ For shame! ” he said quietly; “ for shame! Christ weeps 
for thee! ” 

She looked up with a frozen, insolent smile. 

“Yet there is no tear in all the night, prophet.” 

He raised his hand. A star trailed down the sky, and 
disappeared behind the trees. It startled her for a moment. 


A TALE OF ITALY 19 

and in that moment he was gone, striding into the moon- 
light. She saw a sword gleam in the shadow of the tent. 

“ Carlo! ” she hissed; “Carlo! follow and kill him! ” 

Messer Land came out of his ambush, sheathing his blade. 
His teeth grinned in the white glow. He sauntered up to 
her, and stood looking down, hand on hip. 

“ Not for all the bona-robas in the world,” he said, and 
struck his hilt lightly. “ This I dedicate to his service from 
this day. Let who crosses my little saint beware of it.” 

He burst out laughing, not fierce, but low. 

“ Thou art well served in thy confessor, woman. Wert 
never dealt a fitter penance.” 

It was significant enough that he had no word but mockery 
for her discomfiture. He might have spitted the seducer on 
a point of gallantry; for the siren, she was sacred through 
her calling. 

In the meanwhile Bernardo had left the green, had passed 
the low, roistering camp pitched at a respectful distance 
beyond, and had thrown himself upon his knees in the wide 
fields. 

“ Sweet Jesus,” he prayed, “ O justify Thy Kingdom be- 
fore Thy servant! Already my young footsteps are warned 
of the bitter pass to come. Be Thou with me in the rocky 
ways, lest I faint and slip before my time.” 

He remained long minutes beseeching, while the moon, 
anchored in a little stream of clouds, seemed to his excited 
imagination the vety boat which awaited the coming of One 
who should walk the waters. He stretched out his arms 
to it. 

“ Lord save me,” he cried, “ or I sink! ” 

He heard a snuffle at his back, and looked round and up 
to find the fool Cicada regarding him glassily. 

“ Sink! ” stuttered the creature, swaying where he stood. 
“ Lord save me too! I am under already — drowned in 
Malmsey! ” 


20 


BEMBO 


Bembo rose to his feet with a happy sigh. ^^ExuUate Deo 
adjutori nostro / ” he murmured, “ I am answered.” 

His clear, serene young brow confronted the fuddled 
wrinkles of the other’s like an angel’s. 

“ Cicada mio,” he said endearingly; “judge if God is dull 
of hearing, when, on the echo of my cry, here is one holding 
out his hand to me! ” 

The Fool, staring stupidly, lifted his own lean right paw, 
and squinted to focus his gaze on it. 

“ Meaning me ? — meaning this? ” he said. 

Bembo nodded. 

“A return, with interest, on the little service I was able to 
render thee this morning. O, I am grateful. Cicada! ” 

The Fool, utterly bemused, squatted him down on the 
grass in a sudden inspiration, and so brought his wits to 
anchor. Bernardo fell on his knees beside him. 

“ What moved you to come and save me ? ” he said softly. 
“ What moved you ? ” 

Cicada, disciplined to seize the worst occasion with an 
epigram, made a desperate effort to concentrate his parts on 
the present one. 

“ The wine in my head,” he mumbled, waggling that sage 
member. “ ’T is the wet-nurse to all valor. I walked but 
out of the furnace a furlong to cool myself, and lo! I am a 
hero without knowing it! ” 

He looked up dimly, his face working and twitching in 
the moonlight. 

“Recount, expound, and enucleate,” said he. “From 
what has the Fool saved the Parablist ? ” 

“From the deep waters,” said Bembo, “into which he 
had entered, magnifying his height.” 

The Fool fell a-chuckling. 

“ There was a hunter once,” said he, “ that thought he 
would sound his horn to a hymn, and behold! he was chas- 
ing the deer before he had fingered the first stops. Expound 


A TALE OF ITALY 

me the parable, Parablist. Thou preachest universal good- 
will, they say ? ’* 

“Ay, do I.” 

“ Thou shalt be confuted with thine own text.’* 

“ How, dear Fool ? ’’ 

“ Why, shall not every wife be kind to her friend’s hus- 
band? ” 

“Ay, if she would be unkind to her own.’’ 

The Fool scratched his head, his hood thrown back. 

“And so, in thy wisdom, thou step’st into a puddle, and 
lo! it is over thy ears. Will you come out, good Signor 
Good-will, and ride home in a baby’s pannier?’’ 

Bembo caught one of the wrinkled hands in his soft palms. 

“Dear Cicada,” he said, “are there not tears in your 
heart the whiles you mock ? Do you not love me. Cicada, as 
one you have saved from death ? ’ ’ 

Some sort of emotion startled the harsh features of the Fool. 

“ What better love could I show,” he muttered, “ than to 
warn thee back from the toils that stretch for thy wings? ” 

“Ah, to warn me, to warn me. Cicada!” cried the boy, 
“ but not home to the nest. How shall he ever fly that fears 
to quit it? Be rather like my mother. Cicada, and advise 
these my simple wings.” 

The Fool caught his breath in a sudden gasp — 

“Thy mother! I!” 

A spasm of pain seemed to cross his face. He laughed 
wildly. 

“ An Angel out of a Fool! That were a worthy parent to 
hold divinity in leading-strings.” 

“ Zitto, Cicca mio! ” said Bembo sweetly, pressing a finger 
to his lips. “ Do I not know what wit goes to the acting of 
folly — what experience, what observation ? If thou wouldst 
lend these all to my help and aid! ” 

“ In what? ” 

“ In this propaganda to govern men by love.” 


22 


BEMBO 


“ Thou playest, child, with the cross-bow.” 

” I know it. I have been warned; direct thou my hand.” 

“I!” exclaimed the Fool once more in a startled cry. 
And suddenly, wonder of wonders! he was grovelling at the 
other’s knees, pawing them, weeping and moaning, hiding 
his face in the grass. 

” What saint is this? ” he cried, ” what saint claims the 
Fool to his guide ? ” 

“Alas! ” said the boy, “ no saint, but a child of the human 
God.” 

“And He mated with Folly,” cried Cicada, “and Folly 
is to direct the bolt! ” 

He sat up, beating his brow in an ecstasy, then all in a 
moment forbore, and was as calm as death. 

“ So be it,” he said. “ Be thou the divine fool, and I thy 
mother.” 

With a quick movement Bembo caught the Fool’s cheeks 
between his palms. 

“Ay, mother,” said he, with a little choking laugh, “ but 
see that thy hand on mine be steady, lest the quarrel fly wide 
or rebound upon ourselves. ’ ’ 

It was the true mark indeed to which the cunning rascal 
had all this time been sighting his bow. He watched 
anxiously now for the tokens of a hit. 

The Fool sat very still awhile. 

“ Speak clearer,” he muttered; then of a sudden: “ What 
wouldst ask of me? ” 

“Ah! dear,” sighed Bembo; “only that thou wouldst 
justify thyself of this new compact of ours.” 

‘ ‘ I am clean — as thou readest love. Who but God would 
consort with Folly ? The Fool is cursed to virginity.” 

“ Cicada, dear, but there is no Chastity without Tem- 
perance.” 

The Fool tore himself away, and slunk crouching back 
upon the grass. 


A TALE OF ITALY 


23 


“I renounce thy God!” he chattered hoarsely, “that 
would have me false to my love, my mistress, my one friend I 
Who has borne me through these passes, stood by me in 
pain and madness, dulled the bitter tooth of shame while it 
tore my entrails ? Cure wantonness in women, gluttony in 
wolves, before you ask me to be dastard to my dear.” 

“Alas! ” cried Bembo, “ then am I lost indeed! ” 

A long pause followed, till in a moment the Fool had flung 
himself once more upon his face. 

‘ ‘ Lay not this thing on me, ’ ’ he cried, clutching at the 
grass; ‘ ‘ lay it not ! It is to tear my last hope by the roots, 
to banish me from the kingdom of dreams, to bury me in the 
everlasting ice! I will follow thee in all else, humbly and 
adoringly; I will try to vindicate this love which has stooped 
from heaven to a clown; I will perish in thy service — only 
waste not my paradise in the moment of its realization.” 

Bembo stooped, kneeling, and laid one hand softly on his 
shoulder. 

“Poor Cicada,” he said, “poor Cicada! Alas! I am a 
child where I had hoped a man, and my head sinks beneath 
the waters. Tired am I, and fain to go rest my head in a 
lap that erst invited me. Return thou to thy bottle, as I to 
my love.” 

The Fool, trailing himself up on his knees, caught his 
hands in a wild, convulsive clutch. 

“Fiend or angel!” he cried, “thou shalt not! — The 
woman! — The skirts of the scarlet woman! Go rest thyself 
— not there — but in peace. From this moment I abjure 
it — dost hear, I abjure it? I kill my love for love’s sake. 
O! O!” 

And he fell writhing, like a wounded snake, on the grass. 

Salve, sancta parens ! ” said Bembo, lifting up his hands 
fervently to the queen of night. The pious rogue was quite 
happy in his stratagem, since it had won him his first convert 
to cleanness. 


CHAPTER III 


T he lady of Casa Caprona had flown her tassel-gentle 
and missed her quarry. Outwardly she seemed little 
disturbed by her failure — as insolent as indolent — an impe- 
rious serenity in a velvet frame. The occasion which had 
given, which was still giving, Carlo a tough thought or two 
to digest, she had already, on the morning following her 
discomfiture, assimilated, apparently without a pang. ‘ ‘ The 
which doth demonstrate,” thought Cicada, as he took covert 
and venomous note of her, ‘ ‘ a signal point of difference be- 
tween the sexes. In self-indulgent wickedness there may 
be little to distinguish man from woman. In the reaction 
from it, there is this: The man is subject to qualms of con- 
science; the woman is not. She may be disenchanted, sur- 
feited, aggrieved against fate or circumstance; she is not 
offended with herself. Remorse never yet spoiled her sleep, 
unless where she desired and doubted it on her account in 
another. What she hath done she hath done; and what she 
hath failed to do slumbers for her among the unrealities — 
among things unborn — seeds in the womb of Romance, 
which, though she be the first subject for it, she understands 
as little as she does beauty. From the outset hath she been 
manoeuvring to confuse the Nature in man by using its dis- 
torted image in herself to lure him. Out upon her crimps 
and lacings! He would be dressing and thinking to-day like 
an Arcadian shepherd, an she had not warped his poor 
vision with her sorcery 1 She wears the vestments of ugli- 
ness, and its worship is her religion.” 


24 


A TALE OF ITALY 


25 


It must be admitted that he offered himself a cross illus- 
tration to his own text. The desperate concession wrung 
from him last night, in a moment of vinous exaltation, had 
found his sober morning senses under a mountain of depres- 
sion. He was bitterly aggrieved against fate; yet the only 
quarrel he had with himself was for that mad vow of tem- 
perance, not for the vice which had exacted it of him. The 
tongue in his head was like a heater in an iron. Tantalus 
draughts lipped and bubbled against his palate. The parched 
soil of his heart, he felt, would never again blossom in little 
lonely oases — never again know the solace of dreams aloof 
from the world. His traffic being by no means with heaven, 
God, he supposed, had sent an angel to convert it. And he 
had succumbed through the angel’s calling him — mother! 

He struck his hollow breast with a wild laugh. He 
groaned over the memory of that emotional folly. He 
damned himself, his trade, his employer, his aching head — 
everything and every one, in short, but the author of his 
misery. Him he could not curse — not more than if that pre- 
posterous relationship between them had been real. Neither 
did he once dream of violating his word to him, since it had 
been given — absurd thought — to his child. 

He was none the less savage against circumstance — vicious, 
desperate, insolent with his master, as cross all over as a 
Good Friday bun. Messer Lanti, himself in a curiously 
sober mood, indulged his most acrid sallies with a good- 
humored tolerance which, contemptuously oblivious as it 
was of any late smart of his own inflicting, was harder than 
the blow itself in its implication of a fault overlooked. 

“ Rally, Cicca! ” said he, as they were preparing to horse; 
“ look’st as sour as a green crab. What! if we are to ride 
with Folly, give us a fool’s text for the journey, man.” 

Cicada dwelt a moment on his stirrup, looking round bane- 
fully. 

“ And who to illustrate it, lord ? ” 


26 


BEMBO 


“ Why, thy lord, if thou wilt,” said Carlo. ” He will be 
no curmudgeon in a bid for laughter.” 

The Fool gained his mule’s saddle, and digging heels into 
the beast’s flanks, drove forward. Lanti, with a whoop, 
spurred alongside of him. Cicada slowed to a stop. 

“Hast overtaken Folly, master?” said he, with a leer. 
“ I knew you would not be long.” 

Carlo scratched his head. The Fool turned and rode back; 
so did the other. By the brookside little Bembo was pre- 
paring to mount a steed with which he had been accommo- 
dated, since the lady had peremptorily declined to ride pillion 
to him again. Cicada referred to him with a gesture. 

“ For us,” he said, “ we are two fools in a leash, sith 
Sanctity, stopping where he was, is at the goal before us.” 

Tanti grumbled: “ O, if this is a text! ” and beat his wits 
desperately. 

“A text, sirrah! ” he roared, “ a text for the journey.” 

“ I will rhyme it to you,” said the Fool imperturbably, 
pointing his bauble at Madame Beatrice, who at the moment 
stepped from the green tent: 

“ Nothing is gained to start apace, 

After another hath won the race. 

Shall you and I be jogging, master ? ” 

Tanti raised his whip furiously. Cicada, slipping from 
his mule, dodged behind Bembo. 

“ Save me! ” he squealed, “ save me! I am sound. It is 
folly to give a sound man a tonic.” 

Carlo burst into a vexed laugh. 

“ Well,” said he, “go to. I think I am in a rare mood 
for charity.” 

The little party breakfasted on cups of clear water from 
the spring, and, in the fresh of the morning, folded its tents 
and started leisurely on the final stages of its journey. Ma- 
donna, lazy-lidded, sat her palfrey like a vine-goddess. 


A TALE OF ITALY 


27 


Her bosom rose and fell in absolute tranquillity. She be- 
stirred herself only, when Bembo rode near, to lavish osten- 
tatious fondness on her Carlo, a regard which her Carlo 
repaid with a like ostentation of attention towards his little 
saint. It was an open conspiracy of souls, bared to one 
another, to justify their nakedness before heaven; only the 
woman carried off her shame with an air. Bernardo she 
ignored loftily; but her heart was busy, under all its calm 
exterior, with a poisonous point of vengeance. 

Presently, the sun striking hot, she dismounted and with- 
drew into her litter, a miniature long wagon, drawn on rude 
wheels by a yoke of sleepy oxen, and having an embroidered 
tilt opening to the side. A groom, walking there in attend- 
ance, led her palfrey by the bridle. Lanti and his guest, 
with the Fool for company, rode a distance ahead. The 
young nobleman was thoughtful and silent; yet it was 
obvious that he, with the others, felt the relief of that seces- 
sion. Bernardo broke into a bright laugh, and rallied Cicada 
on his glumness. 

“ Why should I be merry,” said the jester, with a sour 
face, “ when I was invited to a feast and threatened with a 
cudgelling for attending ? ” 

Bernardo looked at him lovingly. He thought this was 
some allusion to his self-enforced abstinence. 

“Dear Cicca,” said he, “the feast was not worth the 
reckoning.” 

“O, was it not!” cried Cicada, with a hoarse crow. 
“ But I spoke of my lord’s brains, which, by the token, are 
the right flap-doodle.” 

He put Bembo between himself and Lanti. 

“Judge between us,” he cried, “judge between us, Mes- 
ser Parablist. He offered to serve himself up to me, and, 
when I had no more than opened my mouth, was already at 
my ribs.” 

Carlo, on the further side, laughed loud. 


28 


BEMBO 


“ It is always the same here, ’ ’ grumbled the Fool. ‘ ‘ They 
will have our stings drawn like snakes’ before they will 
sport with us. They love not in this Italy the joke which 
tells against themselves — of that a poor motley must ware. 
It muzzles him, muzzles him — drives the poison down and 
in; and you wonder at the bile in my face! ” 

He fell back, having uttered his snarl, with politic sud- 
denness, and posted to the rear of the litter. The moment 
he was away, Bembo turned upon his host with a kindling 
look of affection. 

“ I am glad to have thee alone one moment,” said he. 

O Carlo, dear! the base bright metal so to seduce thine 
eyes. Are they not opened ? ” 

Now the tale of madam’s discomfiture at her amoroso’s 
hands the night before had not been long in reaching the 
boy’s ears. She had not deigned, equally in confessing her 
predilections as her shame, to utter them out of the common 
hearing. Modesty in intrigue was a paradox; and, in any 
case, one could undress without emotion in the presence of 
one’s dogs. 

Sq Cicada, putting two and two together, had gathered 
the whole story, and given this spiritual bantling of his a 
hint as to his wise policy thereon, scarce a sentence of which 
had he uttered before he was casting down his eyes and 
mumbling inarticulate under the piercing gaze of an honesty 
which would have been even less effective had it spoken. 
Then had he slunk away, blessing all beatitudes whose in- 
nocence entailed such responsibilities on their worshippers; 
and, as a result, here was Master Truth taking his own 
course with the problem. 

Messer Tanti’s eyes opened indeed to hear truth so fear- 
less; but he made an acrid face. 

“ On my soul! ” he muttered, glistening, and stopped, and 
his brow was shadowed a moment under a devil’s wing. 
Then suddenly, with an oath, he clapped spurs to his horse. 


A TALE OF ITALY 


29 


and galloped a furlong, and, circling, came back at a trot, 
and falling again alongside, put a quite gentle hand on the 
boy’s bridle arm. 

“ Dear, pretty Messer Truth,” said he, “I pray you, on 
my sincerity, turn your horse’s head. Whither, think you, 
are you making ? ” 

” Why, for heaven, I hope. Carlo,” said the boy with a 
smile. 

” Milan is not the gate to it,” answered the rough voice, 
quite entreatingly. ” Go back, I advise you. You will 
break your heart on the stones. Why, look here: dost 
think I am so concerned to have this intrigue proved the 
common stuff of passion ? I care not the feather in thy cap, 
Bernardino. Nay, I am the better for it, sith it opens the 
way to a change. And so with ten thousand others. There 
is the measure of your task. Now, will you go back? ” 

‘‘No, by my faith!” 

Lanti growled, and grunted, and smacked his thigh. 

‘ ‘ Then I cannot help thee : and yet I will help thee. 
Saint Ambrose! To remodel the world to good-will, state- 
craft and all, on the lisp of a red mouth! Wilt be the fashion 
for just a year and a day, shouldering us, every one, poor 
gallants, to the wall? Why should I love thee for that? 
and I love thee nevertheless. There thou goest in a silken 
doublet, to whip all hell with a lutestring; and I — I had 
shown less temerity horsed and armored, and with a whole 
roaring crusade at my back.” 

Bembo smiled very kindly. 

“ Christ’s love was all J7is sword and buckler,” said 
he. 

“And He was crucified,” said Carlo grimly. 

“And died a virgin,” answered the boy, “ that He might 
make forever chaste Love His heir.” 

“ Well,” grumbled Lanti, “ there reigns an impostor these 
fourteen hundred years or so in His place, that ’s all. I 


30 


BEMBO 


hope the right heir may prove his title. ’T is a long tenure 
to dispossess. Methinks men have forgotten.” 

“Yes, they have forgotten,” said the boy. “Like base 
trustees they have chosen to forget on what terms they were 
called to administer an estate. Is it hoove’s fault, then, or 
men’s, that he gropes in the kennels for a living ? As he 
is, ye have made him — poor lyove ! ’ ’ And he began to sing 
so sweetly as he rode, that the other, after a grunt or two, 
sunk into a mere grudging rapture of listening. 

In the meantime, sombre and taciturn, the Fool rode in 
the rear. Before him hulked the great shoulders, stoppered 
with the little round head, of Narcisso, the groom who led 
Madonna’s palfrey. Cicada, regarding this beauty, snarled 
out a laugh to himself. “Sure never,” he thought, “was 
parental fondness worse bestowed than in nicknaming such 
a satyr.” The creature’s small, bony jaw, like a pike’s, 
underhung, black-tufted, viciousness incarnate; his pursed, 
over-lapping brow, with the dirty specks of eyes set fixedly 
in the under-hollows— in all, the mean smallness of his feat- 
ures, contrasted with the slouching, fleshly bulk below — 
suggested one of those antediluvian monsters, whose huge 
bodies and little mouths and throttles give one a sense of 
disproportion that is almost like an indecency. Neverthe- 
less, Narcisso was madam’s chosen attendant at her curtain 
side, where occasionally Cicada would detect some move- 
ment, or the shadow of one, which convinced him that the 
two were in stealthy communication. Indeed, he had posted 
himself where he was with no other purpose than to watch 
for such a sign. 

Once he saw the hem of the curtain lift ever so slightly, 
and Narcisso at the same instant respond, with a secret 
movement of his hand, towards the place. Something glit- 
tered momentarily, and was extinguished. Cicada stretched 
himself in his saddle, and began to whistle. 

Presently he pushed ahead once more and joined his 


A TALE OF ITALY 


31 

master. Opening with some jest, he led him away, and 
they fell into an amble together. 

Afterwards it was apparent to some of Messer Lanti’s fol- 
lowing that, as the morning advanced, their lord’s brow 
darkened from its early rude frankness, and began to exhibit 
certain tokens of a wakening devil with which they had 
plenty of reason to be familiar. Perhaps he wanted his 
dinner. Perhaps the near-approaching termination of his 
summer idyll — for they were long now in the great Lom- 
bardy plain, and the towers of Milan were growing, low and 
small, out of the horizon — was depressing him. Anyhow, 
his first condescension was all gone by noon, when they 
halted, a league short of the city, to rest and dine at the 
“Angel and Tower,” a prosperous inn of the suburbs set 
among mellowing vineyards. 

Of all the company Bernardo was perhaps the only one 
unconscious of the threatening atmosphere. Wonderful 
thoughts were kindling in him at the near prospect of this, 
the goal to all his hopes and ambitions. Milan! It was 
Milan at last — the capital of his promised estate of love. 
Blue and small, swimming far away in the sun mists of the 
plains, he felt that he could clasp it all in his arms, and 
carry it to the foot of the Throne. His eyes brightened with 
clear tears: this salvage of the dark, dead ages reclaimed to 
God! Domine ! " he exclaimed in ecstasy, clasping his 
hands, ^^emitte lucem tuam et veritatem tuam ! O Lord, 
touch mine eyes, that they may penetrate even where Thy 
light shineth like a glowworm in deep mosses! ” 

Carlo roughly shouted him to their meal. His heart was 
throbbing with an emotional rapture as he obeyed. The 
table was served in a trellised alley, under hanging stalac- 
tites of grapes. Beatrice flagged on a bench at the end of 
the board, her shoulders sunk into a bower all crushed of 
sunshine and green shadows. It was the vine-goddess come 
home, soft, sensual, making a lust of fatigue. Her lids were 


32 


BEMBO 


half-closed; her teeth showed in a small, indolent smile; 
light, reflected from the purple clusters, slept on the warm 
ivory of her skin. Bernardo, coming opposite her, stood 
transfixed before a vision of such utter animal loveliness. 
His breath seemed to mount quicker as he gazed. Carlo 
drummed on the board, where he sat hunched over it. 
lyooking from one to the other, he puffed out a little ironic 
laugh. 

‘ ‘ Wonderest what is passing there, boy ? ’ ’ said he. ‘ * Wilt 
never know. Not a hair would she turn though, like 
Althea, she were to find herself in child with a firebrand.” 

Bernardo lowered his eyes with a blush. 

“ Nay,” said he, “ my thoughts of Madonna were more 
tempered. I coveted only her beauty for heaven.” 

“Anon, Messer, anon! ” cried the other banteringly: “ be 
not so free with my property. I hold her yet about the 
waist, seest, with a silver fetter ? If there be a prior claim 
to mine ” 

“Ay, Chastity’s,” put in the boy. 

Land hooted. 

“ Tempt her, if thou wilt, with such a suitor. She will 
follow him as she would the hangman. Wilt throw off thy 
belt, Beatrice? I gave a thousand scudi for it. See what 
Chastity here will offer thee in its room.” 

“ I will answer, if I may examine it,” said Bembo 
gravely. “Will you tell her to unclasp it, Carlo, and let 
me look ? I see it is all hinged of antique coins. There 
was a Father at San Zeno collected such things.” 

“ What, ladies’ girdles! ” 

“ Now, Carlo! you know I mean the coins. Methinks I 
recognize a text in one of them.” 

Beatrice shrugged her shoulders, with a little yawn ex- 
pressive of intolerable boredom. 

“Well,” quoth Land impatiently, “let him see it, you; 
and he shall parable us for grace to meat, wjiile these lag- 


A TALE OF ITALY 


33 


gard dogs” — he looked over his shoulder, growling for his 
dinner. 

Beatrice unclasped the cincture without a word, and flung 
it indifferently across the table. She had lain as impassive 
throughout her own discussing by the others as a slave being 
negotiated in a market. Not a tremor of her eyelids had 
acknowledged either her lord’s rudeness or Bembo’s pro- 
visional compliment. 

The boy took up the belt and examined it. He was 
conscious of a sweet perfume that had come into his hands 
with the trinket. His lips were parted a little, his cheeks 
flushed. Presently he put it down softly, and looked across 
at Beatrice. 

” It is what I thought,” said he — “ the coin, I mean — a 
denarius of Tiberius, in the thirty-first year of Our Lord. 
Shall I tell you what it says to me. Madonna ? ” 

She did not take the trouble to answer. 

” Yes,” roared Carlo. 

Bembo slung his lute to the front, and began coaxing 
forth one of those odd, shy accompaniments of his, into 
which, a moment later, his voice melted: 

“ When Tiberius was Emperor, 

For thirty silver pieces bearing his image 
Did Judas betray his Lord; 

Then, himself betrayed to blood-guilt, cast them ringing 
On the flags of the Temple, and maddened forth and died. 

“ But the Jew elders eyed askance 
The sleek, round coins, accurst and yet no whit 
Depreciated as currency, 

And ogling them and each other, were silent, till one spoke: 

* 111 come, well sped. We need a place to bury the dead. 

Let the Potter take these, and in return 

Change us his field, o’er which we long have haggled. 

So shall this outlay bring us two-fold profit, 

Yet leave us conscience-clean before the Lord.’ 

3 


34 


BEMBO 


“ Thus, gentles dear, was bought ‘ The Field of Blood 
And thus the wicked, damned price returned 
Into the veins of trafl&c, there to circulate 
And poison where it ran. 

One piece found Hope, and changed was for Despair; 

And Charity one led to hoard for self ; 

And one reached Faith, and Faith became a whore. 

But, most of all, what had betrayed Love sore, 

Sweet Love was used to betray forevermore.’* 

His voice broke on a long-drawn, wailing chord. A little 
silence succeeded. Then, like one spent, he took up the 
belt and offered it to Beatrice. 

“ O Madonna! he said, “it is a denarius of the Caesar 
that betrayed Tove. Take back thy wages.” 

She dragged down a spray of vine-leaves, and fanned her- 
self furiously with it, making no other response. 

“So! I am Judas!” cried Carlo; and began to bite his 
moustache, mouthing and glowering. 

‘ ‘ lyove ! ” he sputtered , ‘ ‘ love ! Is there no love in nature ? 
You talk of the human God, you ” 

Beatrice broke in scornfully: 

“ It is the world-wisdom of the monastery. He shall sing 
you love only by the Litany. His queen shall be a virgin 
immaculate, and her bosom a shrine for the white lambs 
of chastity to fold in. A fine proselyte for passion’s under- 
standing! I would not be so converted for all Palestine.” 

Carlo laughed, with some fierce recovery to good-humor. 

‘ ‘ Hearest her, Bernardo ? Thou shalt not prevail there, 
unless by convincing that thou speak’ st from experience.” 

Bembo had sunk down upon the bench, where, resting 
languidly, he still fingered the strings of his lute. Now sud- 
denly, steadfastly, he looked across at the girl, and began to 
sing again: 

“ Love kept me an hour 
From all hours that pass; 


A^TALE OF ITALY 


35 


In her breast, like a flower, 

She stored it, sweet, fragrant. 

Of all time the vagrant, 

Alas, and alasi 

“ Of all time the flower. 

Of all hours that pass. 

For me was that hour. 

When I cared claim it. 

And kiss it and shame it, 

Alas, and alas! 

“ I dared not, sweet hour — 

I let thee go pass ; 

And heaven is my dower. 

My crown is stars seven: 

I am a saint in heaven, 

Alas, and alas! ” 

He never took his eyes, while he sang, off the wondering 
face opposite him. It was strangely transformed by the end 
— flesh startled out of ivory — the face of a wakened Galatea. 
Narcisso coming at the moment to place the first dishes of 
the meal before the company, she sat up, her hands to her 
bosom, with a quick, agitated movement. 

“It is well,” she said. “ I am thy convert, saint in 
heaven!” She lifted the dish before her, and held it out 
with a nervous smile. “ Let us exchange pledges, by the 
token. Give me thy meat, and take mine.” 

Carlo, watching and listening, knitted his brow in a sud- 
den frown, and his hand stole down to his belt. 

“ Give me thy dish,” said Beatrice, almost with entreaty. 

Bernardo laughed. With the finish of his madrigal he 
had pushed his lute, in a hurry of pink shame, to his 
shoulder. 

“Nay, Madonna,” he protested. “Like the simplest 
doctor, I but spoke my qualifications. Feeling is half-way 
to curing, and the best-recommended physician is he who 


36 


BEMBO 


hath practised on himself. I ask no reward but thy for- 
bearance.” 

” Give it me,” she still said. She was on her feet. She 
kissed the rim of the dish. ” Wilt thou refuse now? Bid 
him to, Carlo.” 

” Not I,” said Lanti. “ Hath not, no more than myself, 
been whipped into the classics for nothing ? Quod ali cibus 
est aliis fuat acre venenum. We know what that means, he 
and I.” 

She seemed to turn very pale. 

” Nay,” said Bernardo, jumping up, “ if Madonna conde- 
scends ? ” and the exchange was made, and the men fell to. 

In a moment or two Lanti looked up. 

“What ails thee, Beatrice ? ” 

” I am not hungry.” 

The word had scarcely left her lips before, leaping to his 
feet, and sprawling across the table, he had snatched the 
untasted dish from under her hands, turned, and dashed it 
with its contents full in the face of Narcisso, who waited, 
with others, behind. Fouled, bleeding, half-stunned, the 
man crashed down in a heap, and in the same instant his 
master was upon him, poniard in hand. 

“Confess, wretch, before I kill thee!” he roared. “It 
was mean t for my guest 1 Thou wouldst have poisoned him . ” 

“ Mercy! ” shrieked the creature, through his filthy mask. 
“ O lord, mercy! ” 

The girl, risen in her place, stood panting as if she had 
been running. She had voice no more than to gasp across, 
“Bernardo! For the love of God! Bernardo!” and that 
was all. 

“ No mercy, beast! ” thundered Carlo. “ Down with thee 
to hell unshriven ! ’ ’ 

His strenuous lifted arm was caught in a baby grasp. 

“ Carlo! forbear! The right is mine! Give me the knife! 
Nay, I am the stronger! ” 


A TALE OF ITALY 


37 


With the blood-lust halted in him for one moment, the 
powerful creature turned upon his puny assailant with a 
roar: 

‘ ‘ The stronger ! Thou ! ’ ’ 

Nevertheless he rose, though he held the reptile crushed 
under his foot, while the company, landlord and all, stood 
huddled aghast. His breast was heaving like the pulse of a 
volcano. 

“ The knife! ” he gurgled hoarsely; “ well, the right is 
thine, as thou sayest. Take it — under with thee, dog! — and 
drive in.” 

Bembo seized and flung the dagger into the thick of the 
vines; then threw himself on his knees, and, with all his 
strength, tore the heavy foot from its victim. 

“ Narcisso,” he said, “ is it true ? wouldst have slain Love? 
Ah, fool, not to know that Love is immortal! ” 

“Now, Christ in heaven,” roared Carlo, “if that shall 
save him! ” 

Bernardo rose, and sprang, and cast himself upon his 
breast, writhing his limbs about him. 

“ Fly! ” he shrieked, “fly! while I hold him! ” Then to 
Lanti: “Ah, dear, do not hurt me, who owe thee so much! ” 

The fallen scoundrel was quick to the opportunity. He 
rose and fled, bloody and bemired, from the arbor. Ma- 
donna, seeing him escape, sunk, with a fainting sigh, upon 
her bench. 

Carlo mouthed after his vanishing prey; yet he was tender 
with his burden. 

“Love!” he groaned: “Thou ow’st me? Not this — so 
damned to folly ! There, let go. He was but the tool— and, 
for the rest ” 

He glowered round. 

“ Hush! ” said Bembo. “ It is but the fruits of her teach- 
ing. Blame not thy pupil. Carlo.” 

‘Wy pupil!” 


38 


BEMBO 


“Is she Christ’s — or art thou? Eove gives life, Carlo; 
and all life is God’s, since Christ redeemed it.” 

“What then?” 

“ Why, is not thine honor thy life ? ” 

“ I would die at least to prove it.” 

“ Alas! and thou hast dishonored love, which is life, 
which is God’s. Wouldst eat thy cake and have it, great 
schoolboy ? ” 

“ Pish! Art beyond me.” 

“ Why, if love is life, and life is honor — ergo, love is 
honor. ’ ’ 

“Is it? I dare say.” 

“ But thou must know it.” 

“ I know nothing but that thou hast balked my venge- 
ance; and with that, and having exercised thy jaw, let us 
go back to dinner.” 

‘^Domine^ emitte tuam lucent ! ” sighed Bembo. 


CHAPTER IV 


G ALEAZZO maria SFORZA, third Duke of Milan 
of his line, was very characteristically engaged in a 
very characteristic room of his resplendent castello of the 
Porta Giovia, which dominated the whole city from the 
northeast. This room, buried like a captivating lust in 
the heart of the Rocca, or inner citadel of the castello, 
swarmed with those deft procurers to the great, panders be- 
tween Art and emotion, who are satisfied, by contributing, 
each his share, to the glorification of a sensual despotism, to 
partake a rediffused flavor of its sum. They were poets, 
painters, and musicians, sculptors and learned doctors, and 
every one, despite his independent calling, a sycophant. 
Before the power, central and paramount, which alone in 
their particular orbit could amass within itself the total of 
their lesser lights, they prostrated themselves as before a 
god. It is so in all ages of man. He will contribute, of 
choice, to the prosperous charity; he will lay his gifts at the 
opulent shrine. The worldling, says Shakespeare, makes 
his testament of more to much. d est le plus grand 

roi du monde!'' once cried Madame de Sevigne of Eouis 
XIV., who had danced with her. “ He is the finest gentle- 
man I have ever seen! ” cried Johnson enthusiastically at a 
later date, after an interview with Farmer George; and 
though — perhaps because — the stout old Colossus was as in- 
dependent as reason itself, he spoke the general moral. 
Professors were here, too, who did not blush to proclaim the 
exalted scion of Condottieri, the blood-lusting monster, the 

39 


40 


BEMBO 


infernal atavism of Caligula, for the first gentleman in Italy, 
or to prostitute their erudition in his service. 

It was Madonna Beatrice who had drawn that analogy, 
and there was plenty of justification for it; as also, it must 
be said, plenty of more immediate precedent for the abomi- 
nations of this Galeazzo. If, like the grand-matricidal 
Roman, he had poisoned his mother, the Visconti, his pre- 
decessors, with their atrocious blood-profanations and exalta- 
tions of bastardy, were responsible for the conditions which 
had made so dreadful an act conceivable. If, emulating 
Caligula’s treatment of frail vestals, he had buried alive 
some too-accommodating virgin of the cloister, whom he 
had first debauched, he could quote the Visconti precedent 
of carnality indulged till it became a very ecstasy of fiend- 
possession. Between old Rome and modern Milan, indeed, 
there was little to prefer. Caligula used to throw spectators 
in the theatres to the beasts, having first torn out the tongues 
of his victims, lest his ears should be offended by their artic- 
ulate appeals. Bernabo Visconti and his brother, with whom 
he shared the duchy, agreed upon an edict subjecting State 
criminals to a scale of tortures which was calculated to cul- 
minate in death in not less than forty days. Giovanni Maria 
and Filippo Maria, last of the accursed race, organized man- 
hunts in the streets of their capitals, and fed their hounds on 
human flesh. 

To starve his victims to death, and, when they complained 
(it was an age of practical jokes), to stuff their mouths with 
filth, was a pet sport with Galeazzo. Once, for a wretch 
who had killed a hare, a crime unpardonable, he procured a 
death of laughable, unspeakable torment by forcing him to 
devour the animal, bones and fur and all. 

It is enough. They were all madmen, in fact, moral 
abortions of that “breeding in” of demigods which sows 
the world with chimeras. It is not good for any man to be 
subject to no government but his own, and least of all when 


A TALE OF ITALY 


41 


a vicious heredity has imposed a sickness on his reason. 
Blood affinities on the near side of incest, power unques- 
tioned, unbridled self-indulgences — these are no progenitors 
of temperance and liberality. Amongst savages, genera- 
tions of intermarryings will but refine exquisitely on sav- 
agery; and the despots of this era were little more than the 
last expressions of a decadent barbarism. Galeazzo, and 
such as Galeazzo, were, it is true, to project the long 
shadows of their lusts and cruelties over the times forth- 
coming; yet it is as certain that with him the limits of the 
worst were reached, and hereafter peoples and rulers were 
to grow to some common accord of participation in the 
enlightenments of their ages. 

One might have fancied in him, in his apparent reachings 
to foreclose on such a state, to appropriate to himself not its 
moral but its material accessories, some uneasy premonition 
of the truth. He stood on the line of partition, his sympa- 
thies with the past, his greed for the opulent future, and, 
hesitating, was presently to drop between. That paradox 
of the lusts of savagery and the lusts of intellect hobnobbing 
in the individual, which characterized so many of his con- 
temporaries, cried aloud in him. He was superstitious and 
a sceptic. Like Malatesta of Rimini — who could enshrine 
beneath the shadow of one glorious church the bones of a 
favorite mistress and those of an admired heathen philos- 
opher which he had brought expressly from Greece for the 
purpose — he would make a compromise between Paganism 
and Christianity. He worshipped God and the devil, as if 
his arrogance halted at nothing short of reconciling two 
equal but antagonistic powers. He surrounded himself with 
monks and infidels; acclaimed impartially an illuminated 
psalter or a painting for a bagnio, a Roman canticle or a 
hymn to the Paphian Venus; sobbed in the soft throbbings 
of a lute, and went sobbing to witness a captive’s torturing; 
conceived himself an enlightened patron of the arts, and, in 


42 


BEMBO 


a mad caprice, ordered his craftsmen, under penalty of in- 
stant death, to paint and hang with portraits of the ducal 
family in a single night a hall of the castello. He groped 
and grovelled in bestiality; founded a library and peopled a 
university with erudition; encouraged profligacy and print- 
ing; was covetous and lavish, and splendid as the clusters 
of diamonds on a Jewess’s unclean fingers. His palaces 
swarmed with cutthroats and physicians, philosophers and 
empirics, pimps and theologians, heaven - commissioned 
artists and pope-commissioned agents for indulgences, who 
would sell one absolution beforehand for the foulest excesses 
in lust or violence. His crowded halls were the very stage 
of the ante- renaissance, where the priest, the poisoner, the 
romantic hero and the sordid villain, the flaunting doxy and 
the white dove of innocence, rubbed shoulders with the 
scene-painter and conductor in a disordered rehearsal of the 
melodrama to come. And so we alight on him in this 
Rocca, sinister and lonely, the protagonist of the piece 
to which he was in a little to supply the most tragic 
dinoue^nent. 

He lay sunk back in pillows on a couch set in an alcove . 
high and apart. One long, jewelled hand caressed the head 
of a boarhound. Judged by the swift code of his times, he 
was already mature, a sage of thirty-one. His eyes were 
small and deep-seated under gloomy thatches, his forehead 
narrow and receding, his cheeks ravenous, his nose was 
hooked. But in contrast with this pinched hunger of feature 
were the bagging chin and sensual neck, as well as the 
grossness of the body, which attenuated into feeble legs. 
One could not look on him and gather from crown to foot 
the assurance of a single generous youthful impulse. The 
curse of an inherited despotism had wrinkled him from his 
birth. 

An effeminate luxury, which was presently to make Milan 
a byword among the austerer principalities, spoke in his 


A TALE OF ITALY 


43 


dress. His short-skirted tunic, puiBf-sHouldered, and pinched 
and pleated at the waist within a gem-encrusted girdle, was 
of Damascene silk, rose-colored and lined with costliest fur. 
His hose were of white satin; his slippers, of crimson velvet, 
sparkled with rosettes of diamonds and rubies. On his head 
he wore a cap of maintenance, also of red velvet, and sewn 
with pearls; and a short jewelled dagger hung at his waist. 

By his side, a very foil to his magnificence, stood one in a 
sad-colored cloak. This was Lascaris, a Greek professor, 
whom he had invited to Milan for his learning, and used, 
like Pharaoh, to expound him his dreams. For he was sub- 
ject to evil dreams, was this Galeazzo — hauntings and visions 
which wrought in him that state that he would become a 
very madman if so little as the shadow of an opposition 
crossed his imagination. And even now such a mood was 
working in him, as he lounged, darkly conning the life of 
the hall from his eyrie. 

That was a deep, semi-domed alcove, approached from the 
main chamber by a short avenue of square-sided pillars, and 
roofed with a mosaic of ultramarine and gold, into which 
were wrought the arms of the Sforzas and Viscontis, the 
lilies of France and the red cross of Savoy. Entablatures of 
white marble carved into bas-reliefs filled the inter-columnia- 
tions of this approach; while the pillars themselves, of dark 
green panels inlaid on white, were sprayed and flowered with 
exquisite mouldings in gold. The capitals, blossoming 
crowns of gilt foliage and marble faces, supported a white 
cornice, which at the alcove’s mouth ran down into twin 
fluted shafts, between which rose a shallow flight of steps to 
a sort of dais or shrine within. And thence, from a carved 
marble bench, Galeazzo looked down on the soft surging 
motley of the throng in the hall below. 

Every sound there was instinctively subdued to the occa- 
sion: the laughter of girls, the thrum of lutes, the ring of 
steel and rustle of silk. Not so much as a misdirected 


44 


BEMBO 


glance, even, would venture to appropriate to the company’s 
cynic merriment the figure of a solitary captive, who stood 
bound and guarded at the foot of the dais. Yet it was plain 
that this captive felt the enforced forbearance, and mocked 
it with a bitterer cynicism than its own. 

He was a small, ill-formed, harsh -featured man, very 
soberly dressed, and with a cropped head — a feature suflS.- 
ciently disdainful of the bushed and elaborately waved locks 
of those by whom he was surrounded. Bean- throated and 
short-sighted, his face was a face to scorn falsehood without 
loving truth, a face the mouthpiece of dead languages for 
dead languages’ sake, a face the contemner of the present 
just because it was present and alive. As he stood, lower- 
ingly phlegmatic as any caged hate, his peering eyes and 
snarling lip would occasionally lift themselves together, not 
towards the glittering lord of destinies on the dais, but to- 
wards his henchman, the Greek, who would answer the 
challenge with a stare of serene and opulent contempt. And 
so a long interval of silence held them opposed. 

Suddenly the Duke stirred from his black reverie, his lips 
sputtering little inarticulate blasphemies. His knee pee- 
vishly dismissing the hound, he gripped an arm of the bench, 
and turning gloomily on Bascaris, uttered the one impatient 
word, “ Well ? ” 

The Greek, temporizing for the moment, inclined his 
smooth, black-bearded face, so that the oily essence on his 
hair, which was foppishly crimped and snooded, was wafted 
to the Sforza nostrils, offending their delicacy. Galeazzo, 
momentarily repelled, rallied to a harsher frown, and de- 
manded: “ The fruit, man, the fruit of all this meditation? 
Jesu! it should be rotten-ripe by its smell! ” 

Bascaris expanded his chest, unoffended, and, caressing 
his beard, answered impassively : 

“ Thou questionest of this vision, Theosutos? I answer. 
How many changes can be rung on a carillon of eight bells ? 


A TALE OF ITALY 


45 


By such measure shalt thou imagine, an thou canst, the 
changes possible to the myriad of particles that go to the com- 
position of a single human eye. Now, in the unthinkable 
dispersements and readjustments of Infinity, shall it not 
sometimes happen that two particles, or two thousand par- 
ticles, or two billion particles, out of the sum of particles 
which were that eye, shall chance together again, and re- 
cover, because of that meeting, some very ancient, very 
remote impression which they once absorbed in common? 
These, Theosutos, be the ghosts, haphazard, indefinable, 
visible to one and unseen of all the rest, which make the 
solitary seer; these be the lonely hauntings of the ages — dust 
blown over desolate places, to commingle a moment at some 
crossroads, and weave a phantom wreath of memory, and 
so again be cast and scattered among the cycles. Thy 
vision is but a shadow of old dead years.” 

An ill- repressed stutter of laughter from the prisoner at the 
foot of the steps greeted the finish of this exegesis. Lascaris 
flushed scarcely perceptibly. The Duke took no more notice 
of man or sound than he would have of a whimpering dog. 
Once or twice he stammered an oath, gnawing his finger, 
and frowning up, and down, and up again at the Greek. 
Finally he broke out, in a fury: 

Now, by the Host, thou consolest me — now, by the 
Host! To reconcile to this spectre by arguing it perpetual! 
To ” 

Grinding his teeth, he clipped his long fingers on the 
bench arm, as if he were about to spring. Lascaris fore- 
stalled him with a placid word : 

“ Not perpetual. The mood invokes these shadows, as 
the mood shall lay them.” 

Galeazzo snarled. 

“The mood! What mood, fool? You shift and shift. 
God! it will be the mood of the mood next. Hast thou no 
master-key to all? Go to, then! ” 


46 


BEMBO 


He sank back into his cushions, glooming and panting. 
The sleek olive mask of the face near him yielded no sign of 
perturbation. 

Gradually a very deadly expression came to usurp in the 
Duke’s eyes that blinder madness of desperation. An in- 
dolent smile relaxed his features. He yawned. It was 
because, the soul horror being temporarily withdrawn, the in- 
continent devil was supplanting in him the tempestuous one. 
He rolled lazily about, addressing his creature once more: 

“You doctors — all the same! Big words to little cures. 
Treat a State’s constitution or a man’s — ’t is the word ’s the 
thing. Ye woo not the truth, but her raiment. Hear’st 
me? I had a tutor once, a crabbed fellow called Montano.” 
He yawned again. The prisoner below (Cola Montano him- 
self) gasped slightly, and shot one stealthy glance his way. 
Tascaris sniggered. 

“Surely, lord,” he said, “ we need no reminding while 
the man himself keeps his tongue.” 

A half-suppressed snarl broke from the prisoner. Gale- 
azzo, hunched on his cushions, stared vacantly before him. 

“Ah!” he said, “he could talk. I remember him, a 
midwife to the wind — as ye all be — as ye all be. What of 
the fellow? ” 

Tascaris wondered. 

“Little, in truth. Magnificence, save in so far as your 
Magnificence was pleased to introduce his name.” 

‘ ‘ Did I ? I had forgot. What was the connection ? 
Empty words, was it not, and vainglory and presumption ? ’ ’ 

“ And discontent. Add it thereto, Illustrious.” 

“Discontent? Of what? The man prospers, I under- 
stand, on his school of all the virtues. Discontent ? Why, 
hath he not risen to that independence of power that he dares 
lampoon his prince ? Discontent ? ’ ’ 

“ Like Alexander, thou standest in his light, Theosutos.” 

“ Discontent ? ” 


A TALE OF ITALY 


47 

“Ay, that he should be twitted with having schooled a 
despot.’* 

“ Why, true; he taught me how to score a lesson with a 
scourge. My shoulders could tell.” 

“ Gods! did he dare? ” 

“ He dared. ’T was a fellow of Roman mettle.” 

“ He would dare more now.” 

“What?” 

“A republic, so they say.” 

“Ah! he should be the man for visions — a seer, an 
exorcist.” 

“ Short-sighted for a seer. Illustrious. The man cannot 
see the length of his own nose.” 

“Yet may he see far. I would he were here.” 

The prisoner, wrought at last beyond self-control, turned 
on the Greek and squirted a little shriek of venom: 

“ Yet through and through thee, thou loathsome, envious 
pimp ! ’ ’ 

Then he whipped upon the other: 

“And why not a republic, Galeazzo ? Thy father Fran- 
cesco was a republican at heart, else had he never given his 
son’s leading-strings into my hands. There was a confeder- 
acy dreamed of in his day — Genoa, Milan, and Venice; 
Florence, Sienna, and Bologna. One rampart to the rolling 
Alps, one wall on which barbarian hordes might burst and 
waste themselves in foam. Northwards, a baffled sea; south, 
all Italy a tranquil haven, a watered garden, where knowl- 
edge with all its flowers should find space, and breathing- 
space to grow. Dost thou love Italy? Then why not a 
republic, Galeazzo ? ” 

The Duke, as utterly impassive as if he were deaf, turned 
musingly to Lascaris. 

“ I heard one talk once,” said he, “ of a confederacy of 
republics, as who should say. An army all serfs. Words! 
The tails must obey the heads. Every ox knows it.” 


48 


BEMBO 


“Saving the frog-ox,” giggled the Greek, “ who bursts 
himself in emulation.” 

“Ah!” murmured the Duke, “ the frog-ox: see us tickle 
his self-puffery.” 

He feigned to catch sight all at once of Montano. His 
eyes opened wide in astonishment: he held out his hands. 

“ What! ” he cried, “ the man of visions! the very man! 
Come hither, old friend. I was but now speaking of thee.” 

His guards permitting him, Montano sullenly mounted the* 
steps, and stood, facing the tyrant. His arms hung very 
plainly fettered before him; but the other never took his 
languid, smiling eyes from his face. 

“Galeazzo,” said the scholar, harsh and quick, “I did 
not write the epigrams; but no matter. You seek to make 
an example; I submit myself. It is the despot’s part to lay 
hands on order and sobriety. Despatch, then. Thou wilt 
serve my ends better than thine own. Every blow to free- 
dom is a link gone from thy mail.” 

The Duke listened to him as if in bland wonder. 

“ Epigrams! An example! ” he exclaimed. “ O, surely 
there is some mistake here.” 

The thick brows of the prisoner contracted over his leaden 
eyes. He set his teeth, breathing between them. Galeazzo 
appealed to Lascaris: 

“ Know’st aught of this? ” 

The Greek shook his head, ineffably, licking his lips. 

“No,” said Galeazzo, “nor is it conceivable that my 
old friend and reprover should condescend to that meaner 
scourge. Jesu! for one of his learning and condition to in- 
cur the fate of the common lampooner! Why, I mind me 
how one was invited to a ragout minced of his own tongue.” 

“Yes, Illustrious.” 

“And another to having his couplets scored in steel on 
the soles of his feet.” 

“Yes, Illustrious.” 


A TALE OF ITALY 


49 


“And yet another to boiling eggs under his arm-pits, since 
he was clever at hatching those winged epigrams,” — he 
turned smoothly again to the tutor, — “but not clever, as thou 
art, at reforming constitutions.” 

He fell back, with a sleek and hateful smile; then, sighing 
suddenly, advanced his body again. 

“ I am troubled, Montano, I am troubled, and, since you 
chance to be here ” 

He yielded the explanation to Lascaris. 

“ I am weary of relating. Tell him of my symptoms, 
thou ” — and he sunk once more into his cushions. 

The Greek diagnosed, his shifty eyes refusing to encounter 
the hard inquisition of the other’s: 

“ His Magnificence is of late ever conscious of a face 
behind him, mournful and threatening. And still, if he 
turns to challenge it, it is behind him; and still behind, 
maddening him with a thought of something he can never 
overtake.” 

Galeazzo fixed his burning eyes on the prisoner, as if, 
through all his mockery, the hunger of a hopeless hope 
betrayed his soul. 

“ Canst thou strike it away,” he whispered hoarsely, “ or 
at least tell me what it is ? ” 

Montano growled : 

“ Ghosts, and dead years, and eye-particles! This trash 
of pseudo-science — a saltimbanco braying in a doctor’s skin! 
Less licence, Galeazzo, and more exercise — ’ t is all contained 
in that. This vision is but a swimming blot of bile.” 

He was really half-deceived, half-convinced. The Duke 
seemed to listen reassured, then slowly rose, and, with an 
ingratiatory smile, patted his erst tutor’s shoulder. 

“Old honest friend,” he said, “and ever true to the 
Roman in thee! Thou hast spoken as one might expect. 
Bile, is it — bile ? and little wonder in this upset of constitu- 
tions. Ebhene! we will take instant means to throw it off.” 

4 


50 


BEMBO 


He made a sign to the chief of the guard below. 

“Andrea! ” 

Lascaris slunk back with a little gloating smile. The 
oflBcer brought up his men about Montano. The Duke 
murmured softly: 

“ Take good Messer Cola, and — ” he paused a little, gaz- 
ing winningly into his captive’s surprised, splenetic face — 
‘ ‘ and have him soundly flogged before the gatehouse — to 
the bone, Andrea, tell Messer Jacopo.” 

Before the luring treachery of this stroke the prisoner 
stood for one moment shocked, aghast. The next, as the 
guard seized him, he broke into a storm of vituperations and 
blasphemies, calling upon all the gods of Rome to protect 
him from a monster. Andrea crushed his mailed hand 
down on his writhing lips; he was dragged away struggling 
and screaming. As he disappeared Galeazzo descended 
mincingly to the hall, bent on pursuing the show. A cloud 
of courtiers, male and female, flocked, like rooks following 
a plough, in his wake. As he left the citadel and was cross- 
ing the outer ward, two ladies — one a young woman in her 
late twenties; the other a slim, pale girl of thirteen — broke 
from a group of attendants, and came, wreathed in one em- 
brace, to accost him. The elder, looking in his face with a 
certain questioning anxiety, spoke him with a propitiatory 
smile and sigh: 

“ Galeazino, O thou little sweetest burden on my 
heart! ” 

The endearment was really an inquiry, a warning; for 
there was a foreboding madness in his eyes. He made as if 
he would have struck her from his path. Her child com- 
panion caught his wrist with a merry cry: 

“ My little father, whither sportest thou without thy 
women ? ’ ’ 

He changed the direction of his hand and flipped the 
younger’ s cheek. 


A TALE OF ITALY 51 

“Come, then, chuck,” said he. “There is a frolic 
toward that will speed an idle hour.” 

She caught up her skirts and followed him, as did the 
other, but less closely. 

The gatehouse commanded from its battlements an open 
panorama of the town as far as the piazza of the duomo. 
Immediately to its front, in a bare extended space, stood the 
whipping-post, a stout beam set on end on a stage and 
furnished with hooks and chains. Already on the ground 
beside this (by preconcerted arrangement indeed) was a cer- 
tain functionary, much respected of Milan. This was Messer 
Jacopo, the high court executioner — one, by virtue of his 
dealings in blood, almost on an equality with the master 
herald himself. Immobile and voiceless, he stood there like 
a model in an armory. A short shirt of mail, and over it a 
scarlet jerkin with a plain dagger at the waist; hose of sober 
gray; a bonnet and shoes of black velvet, the first adorned 
with a red quill, the second with red rosettes; gorget and 
steel gauntlets — such was the whole of Messer Jacopo, save 
for the wooden, inessential detail of his face and its fixed 
eyes of glass. There was something painfully human, by 
contrast, in his understrappers, two or three of whom stood 
at hand in leathern aprons— men of a rich, moist physique 
and greasy palms and jocund slaughter-house expression. 
These were on bantering terms with the mob, with all that 
loose raff of the neighborhood, which had come streaming 
and pushing and chattering to witness the sport. It was 
not often that the rats of the quarter Giovia had a master of 
philosophy to desert. 

They had not long to wait. Almost simultaneously a 
little surging group appeared at the gates, and a throng 
of gay heads above the ramparts. The jostle and delighted 
whisper went among the crowd. What proportion would 
the scourging of a prince’s tutor bear to the punishment 
it avenged ? It surely would not be allowed to lose by 


52 


BEMBO 


procrastination. They craned their necks to catch an early 
sight of the victim. One of the assistants whipped experi- 
mentally through his fingers a thick, cruel thong of bullock- 
hide. It clacked a dry tongue. 

“Be quiet, thirsty one,” he cried boisterously. “ In a 
moment thou shalt drink thyself to a sop.” 

Up on the ramparts the ladies, with bright, inquisitive 
eyes, stood by their lord. The girl Catherine, petted love- 
child of her father, hugged confidingly to his arm. 

“ Padre mio,” she said, “ how sweet the world looks from 
here! I could fancy we were all Uazaruses, laughing down 
on that wicked Dives! ” 


CHAPTER V 


M esser EANTI and his party entered Milan, in a very 
subdued mood, by the Gate of Saint Mark. It had 
been with an emotion beyond words that Bembo had found 
himself approaching the walls of this fair city of his dreams. 
The prosperous contado, watered in every direction by broad 
dykes; the clustering vines and saintly hued olive gardens; 
the busy peasantry; the richness of the very wayside shrines, 
had all appeared to speak a content and holiness with which 
the perverse passions of men were at such bitter variance. 
The discrepancy confounded, as it was presently upon a 
fuller experience to inspire, him. Here in one land, inces- 
santly jostling and reacting on one another, were a devo- 
tional and a sensuous fervor, both exhibiting a lust of beauty 
at fever-heat; were a gross superstition and an excellent 
reason; were a powerful priestcraft and a jeering scepticism 
— all drawing from the forehead of a Papacy, which, latterly 
pledged to the most unscrupulous temporal self-aggrandize- 
ment, was reverenced for the vicarship of a poor and celibate 
Christ. Issuing, equipped with an artless conventual pur- 
pose, from the cool groves of his cloister, he found a land 
dyed in blood and the blue of heaven, festering under God’s 
sun, and rejoicing in the color schemes of its sores. On 
what principle could he study to sweeten this paradox of a 
constitution, where health was enamored of disease? ^^Deus 
meuSy in te confido'^ he prayed, with hands clasped fervently 
upon his breast; '‘^non erubescan^y neque irrideant me inimici 
mei ! O Eord, give me the vision to find and show to others 
a path through this beautiful wilderness!” 

53 


54 


BEMBO 


As the long walls of the town, broken at intervals into 
turrets, broadened before him, violet against a deep, cloud- 
less sky, his ecstasy but increased — he held out his arms. 

“O thou,” he murmured, “that I have hungered for, 
looking down on thee from the mountain of myrrh! Until 
the day break and the shadows flee away! ” 

A little later, in a deep angle of the enceinte, they came 
upon a gruesome sight. This was no less than the Mont- 
martre of Milan — a great stone gallows with dangling chains, 
and tenanted — faugh! A cloud of winged creatures rose 
as they approached, and scattered, dropping fragments. It 
was the common repast, stufiF of rogues and pilferers — noth- 
ing especial. The ground was trodden underneath, and 
Bembo shrieked to see two white, stiff feet sticking from it. 
Uanti followed the direction of his hand, and exclaimed 
with a moody shrug: 

“An assassin. Saint — nothing more. We plant them like 
that, head down.” 

“Alive?” 

“O, of course!” 

Bembo cried out: “ These are not sons of God, but of 
Belial!” and passed on, with his head drooping. Carlo 
turned to Beatrice, where she rode behind, and, without a 
word, pointed significantly to the horrible vision. She 
laughed, and went by unmoved. 

In a little after they had all entered by the gate, and the 
city was before them. Bembo, kindled against his will, rose 
in his saddle and uttered an exclamation of delight. Before 
his eyes was spread a white town with blue water and up- 
standing cypresses — wedges of midnight in midday. There 
were terraces and broad flagged walks, and palaces and 
spacious loggias — fair glooms of marble shaken in the spray 
of fountains. From its cold, shadowless bridges to the 
heaped drift of the duomo in its midst, there seemed no 
slur, but those dark cypresses, on all its candid purity. It 


A TALE OF ITALY 


55 


looked like a city flushed under a veil of hoar frost, the glare 
of its streets and markets and gardens subdued to one softest 
harmony of opal. 

Yet in quick contrast with this chill, sweet austerity, 
glowed the burning life of it. In the distance, like travel- 
ling sparks in wood ashes; nearer, flashing from roof or 
balcony in harlequin spots of light; nearest of all, a very 
baggage-rout of figures, fantastic, chameleonic, an endless 
mutation and interflowing of blues, and crimsons, and 
purples — tirelessly that life circulated, the hot arterial blood 
which gave their tender hue to those encompassing veins of 
marble. 

It was on this drift of souls going by him, gay and light, 
it seemed, as blown petals, that Bernardo gazed with the 
most loving fondness. He pictured them all, eager, passion- 
ate, ardent, moving about the business of the Nature- God, 
propagating His Gospel of sweetness, adapting to imperish- 
able works the endlessly varying arabesques of woods, and 
starry meadows, and running clouds and waters — epitomiz- 
ing His System. He admired these works, their beauty, 
their stability, their triumphant achievement; though, in 
truth, his soul of souls could conceive no achievement for 
man so ideal as a world of glorious gardens and little abodes. 
But the sun was once more in his heart, and heaven in his eyes. 

The swallows stooped in the streets to welcome him: 
“Hail, little priest of the cloistered hills!” The scent of 
flowers offered itself the incense to his ritual; the fountains 
leapt more merrily for his coming. “Love! love!” sang 
the birds under the great eaves; “ He will woo this cruel 
world to harmlessness. Where men shall lead with charity, 
all animals shall follow. The good fruits ripen to be eaten; 
it is their love, their lust to be consumed in joy. What lamb 
ever gave its throat to the knife ? The violet flowers the 
thicker the more its blossoms are ravished. What new limb 
ever budded on a maimed beast ? ” 


BEMBO 


56 

“Ah! the secret,” sang Bembo’s soul— “ the secret, or 
the secret grievance, of the cosmos will yield itself only to 
love. Useless to try to wrench forth its confession by tor- 
ture. Let retaliation spell love, for once and forever, and 
to the infinite sorrows of life will appear at last their returned 
Redeemer. ’ ’ 

Once he turned to Carlo, with the frowning angel in his 
eyes: 

“ What man art thou, to cite thy mutability for Love’s 
own, or to doubt that where he is assured, in a fickle world, 
he will be made perpetually at home, he will sojourn very 
sweetly, even to the coming of death? ” 

And again he rebuked him: 

“ ‘All women are false,’ says he, whose knowledge should 
but be of one. So the thief calls all men thieves to justify 
his lust of acquisition.” 

His heart was full as he rode by the narrow streets. His 
eyes and ears were tranced with color, the murmur of happy 
voices, the clash of melodious bells. He could not think of 
that late vision of horror but as a dream. These blithe souls, 
in all their moods and worships such true apostles of his gay, 
sweet God! They could not love or practise harshness but 
as a deterrent from things unnamable. The very absence 
of sightseers from that pit of scowling death proved it. 

And then, in a moment, they had debouched upon an open 
place overlooked by a massive fortress, and in its midst, the 
cynosure of hundreds of gloating eyes, was a human thing 
under the flail — a voice moaning from the midst of a red 
jelly. 

His heart sunk under a very avalanche. He uttered a 
cry so loud as to attract the attention of the spectators 
nearest. 

‘ ‘ Who is it ? What hath he done ? ” he roared of one. 
“ Trampled on the Host? Defiled a virgin of the mother? 
Murdered a priest ? ’ ’ 


A TALE OF ITALY 


57 


The face puckered and grinned. 

“ Worse, Messer Cavalier. He once whipped the Duke 
when his tutor.” 

Bembo’s whole little body braced itself to the spring. 

“ Tutor! ” he cried: “ is that, then. Cola Montano? ” 

The gross eye winked: 

“What is left of it.” 

He was answered with a leap and rush. The mob at that 
point staggered, and bellowed, and fell away from the hoofs 
of a furious assailant. Carlo, pre-admonished, was already 
on the boy’s flank. “Stop, little lunatic!” he shouted, 
sweating and spurring to intervene. He had no concern for 
the feet he trampled or the ribs he bruised. He stooped and 
snatched at the struggling horse’s bridle. “ It is the Duke’s 
vengeance!” he panted. “See him there above! Art 
mad? ” 

A face, flushed as the face of Him who scourged the huck- 
sters from the temple, was turned upon him. 

“Art thou? Strike for retaliation by love, or get behind! ” 

“ Know’st nothing of his deserts,” cried Carlo. “ Be 
advised ! ’ ’ 

“ By love,” cried the boy. “ He is worthy of it — a good 
man — I carry a letter to him from my father. Fall back, I 
say! ” 

He drove in his heels, and the horse plunged and started, 
tearing the rein from Land’s grasp. It was true that Bembo 
bore this letter, among others, in his pouch. The Abbot of 
San Zeno was so long out of the world as to have miscalcu- 
lated the durations of court favor. Cola had been an influ- 
ence in his time. 

“Devil take him!” growled Carlo; but he followed, 
scowling and slashing, in his wake. The mob, authorized 
of its worst humor, took his truculence ill. That reduced 
him to a very devilish sobriety. He began to strike with 
an eye to details, “blazing” his passage through the 


58 


BEMBO 


throng. The method justified itself in the opening out of a 
human lane, at the end of which he saw Bembo spring upon 
the stage. 

The executioner was cutting deliberately, monotonously 
on, and as monotonously the voice went moaning. Messer 
Jacopo, standing at iron ease beside, took no thought, 
it seemed, of anything — least of all of interference with 
the Duke’s will. It must have been, therefore, no less 
than an amazing shock to that functionary to find himself 
all in an instant stung and staggered by a bolt from the blue. 
He may have been, like some phlegmatic serpent, conscious 
of a hornet winging his way; but that the insect should 
have had it in its mind to pounce on him ! 

He found himself and his voice in one metallic clang : 

Seize him, men! ” 

Carlo panted up, and Jacopo recognized him on the mo- 
ment. 

“ Messer Danti! Death of the Cross! Is this the Duke’s 
order? ” 

“ Christ’s old fool! ” gasped the cavalier. “ Touch him, 
I say, and die. I neither know nor care.” 

His great chest was heaving; he whipped out his sword, 
and stood glaring and at bay. Bembo had thrown himself 
between the upraised thong and its quivering victim. He, 
too, faced the stricken mob. 

“ Christ is coming! Christ is coming! ” he shrieked. 
“ Prepare ye all to answer to Him for this! ” 

A dead silence fell. Some turned their faces in terror. 
Here and there a woman cried out. In the midst, Messer 
Jacopo raised his eyes to the battlements, and saw a white 
hand lifted against the blue. He shrugged round grumpily 
on his fellows. 

” Unbind him,” he said; and the whip was lowered. 

The poor body sunk beside the post. Bembo knelt, with 
a sob of pity, to whisper to it: 


A TALE OF ITALY 


59 


Courage, sad heart! He comes indeed.” 

The livid and suffering face was twisted to view its 
deliverer. 

“ Escape, then,” the blue lips muttered, “ while there is 
time.” 

Bempo cried out: “ O, thou mistakest whom I mean! ” 

The face dropped again. 

“ Never. Christ or Galeazzo — it is all one.” 

A hand was laid on the boy’s shoulder. He looked up to 
find himself captive to one of the Duke’s guard. A grim 
little troop, steel- bonneted and armed with halberts, sur- 
rounded the stage. Messer Land, dismounted, had already 
committed himself to the inevitable. He addressed himself, 
with a laugh, to his friend: 

“ Very well acquitted, little Saint,” said he — “ of all but 
the reckoning.” 

Bembo lingered a moment, pointing down to the bleeding 
and shattered body. 

“ ‘And there passed by a certain priest,’ ” he cried, “ ‘ and 
likewise a Levite; but a Samaritan had compassion on him,’ ” 
and he bowed his head, and went down with the soldiers. 

Now, because of his beauty, or of the fear or of the pity he 
had wrought in some of his hearers, for whatever reason, a 
woman or two of the people was emboldened to come and 
ask the healing of that wounded thing; and they took it 
away, undeterred of the executioners, and carried it to their 
quarters. And in the meanwhile, Bembo and his comrade 
were brought before the Duke. 

Galeazzo had descended from the battlements, and sat in a 
little room of the gatehouse, with only a few, including his 
wife and child, to attend him. And his brow was wrinkled, 
and the lust of fury, beyond dissembling, in his veins. He 
took no notice of Lanti — though generally well enough dis- 
posed to the bully — but glared, even with some amazement 
in his rage, on the boy. 


6o 


BEMBO 


‘ ‘ Who art thou ? ” he thundered at length. 

“ Bernardo Bembo.” 

The clear voice was like the call of a bird’s through tem- 
pest. 

“ Whence comest thou ? ” 

“ From San Zeno in the hills.” 

“ What seek’ St thou here ? ” 

“^‘Thy cure.” 

The Duke started, and seemed actually to crouch for a 
moment. Then, while all held their breath in fear, of a 
sudden he fell back, and gripped a hand to his heart, and 
muttered, staring: ” The face! ” 

He closed his eyes, and passed a tremulous hand across 
his brow before he looked again; and lo! when he did so, 
the madness was past. 

“Child,” he said hoarsely, almost whispered, “what 
said’ St thou? Come nearer: let me look at thee.” 

He rose himself, with the word, stiffly, like an old man, 
and stood before the boy, and gazing hungrily for a little 
into the solemn eyes, dropped his own as if abashed — half- 
blinded. In the background. Bona, his wife, and the child 
Catherine clung together in a silence of fear and wonder. 

“Ah, I am haunted! ” shuddered the tyrant. “ Who told 
thee that? It is a face, child, a face — there — in the dead 
watches of the night — behind me — and by day, always the 
same, a damned clinging bur on my soul — not to be shaken 
off — always behind me! ” 

He gave a little jerk and motion of repugnance, as if he 
were trying to throw something off. Carlo struck in: 
“ Lord, let him sing to thee! I say no more.” 

The deep, gloomy eyes of the Duke were lifted one in- 
stant to the strange seraph-gaze fixed silently upon him; 
then, making an acquiescent motion with his hand, he 
turned, and sat himself down again as if exhausted, and 
hid his brow under his palm. 


A TALE OF ITALY 


6i 


Now the boy, never looking away, slung forward his lute, 
and like one that charms a serpent, began softly to finger the 
strings. And Galeazzo’s head, in very truth like an adder’s, 
swung to the rhythm; and as the chords rose piercing, he 
clutched his brow, and as they melted and sobbed away, so 
did he sink and moan. And then, suddenly, into that wild 
symphony drew the voice, as a spray of sweetbriar is drawn 
into a wheel; and all around caught their breath to listen: 

“Two children, a boy and girl, were playing between wood and 
meadow. 

They pledged their faith, each to the other, with rosy lips on lips. 
He to protect, she to trust — always together forever and ever. 

A storm rose : the dragon of the thunder roared and hissed. 
Probing the earth with its keen tongue. 

How she cowered, the pretty, fearful thing ! 

Yet adored her little love to see him dare 

That tree-cleaving monster with his sword of lath. 

And in the end, because she trusted in her love, her love prevailed, 
And drove the roaring terror from the woods. 

She never felt such faith, nor he such pride of virtue in his strength. 
Then shone out the rainbow. 

And he bethought him of the jewelled cup hid at its foot. 

‘Stay here,’ quoth he, new boldened by his triumph, 

‘ And I ’ll fetch it ye.’ 

But she cried to him : ‘ Nay, loveling, take me too ! 

We were to be aye together : O leave me not behind ! ’ 

But he was already on his way. 

And still, as he pursued, the rainbow fled before, 

And the voice of his playmate, faint and fainter, followed in his wake: 
‘ O leave me not behind ! ’ 

Then grew he wild and desperate, clutching at that mirage, the 
unattainable. 

The lustrous cup that was to bring him happiness in its possession. 
And the voice grew ghostly in his wake, mingling with rain and the 
whirl of dead leaves : 

‘ Leave me not behind ! ’ 

But now the fire of unfulfilment seared his brain. 

And often he staggered in the slough. 

Or fell and cut himself on rocks. 


62 


BEMBO 


And so, pushing on half-blindly, 

Knew not at last from the dead rainbow the ignis fatuuSy 
The false witch-light that danced upon his path, 

Leading him to destruction. Until, lo ! 

With a flash and laugh it was not, 

And he awoke to a mid-horror of darkness — 

Night in the infernal swamps — 

Blind, crawling, desolate ; and forever in his heart 

The weeping shadow of a voice, ‘ O leave me not behind ! ’ 

Then at that, like one amazed, he turned. 

And cried in agony : ‘ Innocenza, my lost Innocence, 

Where art thou? O, little playmate, follow to my call ! ’ 

And there answered him only from the gates of the sunset af heart- 
broken sigh.” 

He ended to a deep silence, and, while all stood stricken 
between tears and expectancy, moved to within a pace of the 
Duke. 

“ O prince! ” he cried, “ haunted of that Innocence! Turn 
back, turn back, and find in thy lost playmate’s face the 
ghost that now eludes thee! ” 

Carlo gave a little gasp, and his hand shivered down to 
his sword-hilt. He must die for his saint, if provoked to 
that martyrdom; but he would take a desperate pledge or 
two of the sacrifice with him. One of the women, the 
younger, watching him, knew what was in his mind, and 
breathed a little scornfully. The other’s eyes were set in a 
sort of rapture upon the singer’s face. A minute may have 
passed, holding them all thus suspended, when suddenly 
Galeazzo rose, and, throwing himself at Bembo’s feet, broke 
into a passion of sobs and moans. 

“ Margherita, my little playmate, that liest under the 
daisies. O, I will be good, sweet — I will be good again for 
thy sake.” 


CHAPTER VI 


M any a head in the palace, though accustomed witness 
of strange things, tossed on its pillow that night in 
sleepless review of a scene which had been as amazing in its 
singularity as it was potential in its promise. What were 
to be the first-fruits of that cataclysmic revulsion of feeling 
in a nature so habitually frozen from all tenderness ? If no 
more than a shy snowdrop or two of reason, mercy, justice, 
pushing their way up through a savage soil, the result 
would be marvel enough. Yet there seemed somehow in 
the atmosphere an earnest of that and better. The hearts 
of all trod on tiptoe, fearful of waking their souls to disen- 
chantment — agitated, exultant; wooing them to convales- 
cence from an ancient sickness. The spring of a joyous 
hope was rising voiceless somewhere in the thick of those 
drear corridors. The foetid air, wafted through a healing 
spray, came charged with an unwonted sweetness. Whence 
had he risen, the lovely singing-boy, spirit of change, har- 
binger of a new humanity ? Whither had he gone ? To the 
Duke’s quarters — that was all they knew. They had seen 
him carried off, persuaded, fondled, revered by that very 
despot whom he had dared divinely to rebuke, and the doors 
had clanged and the dream passed. To what phase of its 
development, confirming or disillusioning, would they re- 
open ? The answer to them was at least a respite; and that 
was an answer sufficient and satisfying to lives that obtained 
on a succession of respites. Alas! as there is no logic in 
tyranny, so can there be none in those who endure it. 

63 


64 


BEMBO 


The earliest ratification of the promise was to witness in 
the figure of the Duke coming radiant from his rooms in 
company with the stranger himself, his left arm fondly 
passed about the boy’s neck, his eyes full of admiration and 
flattery. He felt no more discomfort, it appeared, than had 
Madame Beatrice on a certain occasion, in the thought of 
his late self-exposure before his creatures. Such shameless- 
ness is the flnal condition of autocracy. He had slept well, 
untormented of his vision. As is the case with neurotics, a 
confident diagnosis of his disease had proved the shortest 
means to its cure. Clever the doctor, too, who could make 
such a patient’s treatment jump with his caprices; and with 
an inspired intuition Bernardo had so manoeuvred to recon- 
cile the two. A whim much indulged may become a habit, 
and he was determined to encourage to the top of its bent 
this whim of reformation in the Duke. No ungrateful 
physicking of a soured bile for him; no uncomfortable phi- 
losophy of organic atoms recombined. He just restored to 
him that long-lost toy of innocence, trusting that the im- 
agination of the man would find ever novel resources for play 
in that of which the invention of the child had soon tired. 
So for the present, and until virtue in his patient should 
have become a second nature, was he resolved wisely to es- 
chew all reference to the intermediate state, and only by 
example and analogy to win him to consciousness and re- 
pentance of the enormities by which it had been stained. A 
very profound little missionary, to be sure. 

The Duke, leaning on his arm as he strolled, had a smile 
and a word for many. The only visible token of his familiar 
self which he revealed was the arbitrariness with which 
he exacted from all a fitting deference towards his protigi. 
This, however, none, not the greatest, was inclined to with- 
hold, especially on such a morning. Soft-footed cardinals, 
princes of the blood, nobles and jingling captains, vied with 
one another in obsequious attentions to our little neophyte 


A TALE OF ITALY 


65 


of love. The reasons, apart from superstitious reverence, 
were plentiful: his sweetness, his beauty, his gifts of song 
— all warm recommendations to a sensuous sociality; the 
whispered romance of his origin, no less a patent in its eyes 
because it turned on a title doubly bastard; finally, and most 
cogently, no doubt, his political potentialities as a favorite 
in posse. 

This last reason above any other may have counted for 
the extraordinary complaisance shown him by Messer Lu- 
dovico, the Duke’s third younger brother, at present at court, 
who was otherwise of a rather inward and withdrawing 
nature. He, this brother, had come from Pavia, riding the 
final stage that morning, and though he had only gathered 
by report the story of the last twelve hours, thought it worth 
his while to go and ingratiate himself with the stranger. 
He found him in the great hall of the castello, awaiting the 
trial of certain causes, which, as coming immediately under 
the ducal jurisdiction, it was Galeazzo’s sport often to pre- 
side over in person. Here he saw the boy, standing at his 
brother’s shoulder by the judgment-seat — the comehest 
figure, between Cupid and angel, he had ever beheld; frank, 
sweet, child-eyed — in every feature and quality, it would 
seem, the antithesis of himself. Messer Ludovico came up 
arm in arm, very condescendingly, with his excellency the 
Ser Simonetta, Secretary of State, a gentleman whom he was 
always at pains to flatter, since he intended by and by to 
destroy him. Not that he had any personal spite against 
this minister, however much he might suspect him of mis- 
representing his motives and character to the Duchess Bona, 
his sister-in-law, to whom he, Ludovico, was in reality, he 
assured himself, quite attached. His policy, on the con- 
trary, was always a passionless one; and the point here was 
simply that the man, in his humble opinion, affected too 
much reason and temperance for a despotic government. 

As he approached the tribune he uncapped, a thought on 
5 


66 


BEMBO 


the near side of self-abasement, to his brother, whose cavalier 
acknowledgment of the salute halted him, however, affable 
and smiling, on the lowest step of the dais. He was studious, 
while there, to inform with the right touch of pleasant con- 
descension (at least while Galeazzo’s regard was fixed on 
him) his attitude towards Simonetta, lest the ever-suspi- 
cious mind of the tyrant should discover in it some sign of a 
corruptive intimacy. With heirs-possibly-presumptive in 
Milan, sufficient for the day’s life must be the sleepless 
diplomacy thereof; and better than any man Eudovico knew 
on what small juggleries of the moment the continuance of 
his depended. His complexion being of a swarthiness to have 
earned him the surname of The Moor, he had acquired a 
habit of drooping his lids in company, lest the contrastive ef- 
fect of white eyeballs moving in a dark, motionless face should 
betray him to the subjects of those covert sidelong glances 
by which he was wont to observe unobserved. Even to his 
shoulders, which were slightly rounded by nature, he man- 
aged, when in his brother’s presence, to give the suggestion 
of a self-deprecatory hump, as though the slight burden of 
State which they already endured were too much for them. 
His voice was low- toned; his expression generally of a soft 
and rather apologetic benignity. His manner towards all 
was calculated on a graduated scale of propitiation. Paying 
every disputant the compliment of deferring outwardly to his 
opinions, he would not whip so little as a swineherd without 
apologizing for the inconvenience to which he was putting 
him. His dress was rich, but while always conceived on the 
subdominant note, so to speak, as implying the higher ducal 
standard, was in excellent taste, a quality which he could 
afford to indulge with impunity, since it excited no suspicion 
but of his simplicity in Galeazzo’s crude mind. In point of 
fact Messer Eudovico was a born connoisseur, and, equally 
in his choice of men, methods, and tools, a first exemplar of 
the faculty of selection. 


A TALE OF ITALY 


67 


Presently, seeing the Duke’s gaze withdrawn from him, 
he spoke to Messer Simonetta more intimately, but still out 
of the twisted corner of his mouth, while his eyes remained 
slewed under their lids towards the throne : 

“ Indeed, my lord, indeed yes; ’tis a veritable Castalidis, 
fresh from Parnassus and the spring. Tell me, now — ’t is 
no uncommon choice of my brother to favor a fair boy — what 
differentiates this case from man}^ ? ’ ’ 

The secretary, long caged in office, and worn and toothless 
from friction on its bars, had yet his ideals of Government, 
personal as well as political. 

“Your Highness,” said he, in his hoarse, thin voice, 
‘ ‘ what differentiates sacramental wine from Malvasia ? ’ ’ 

“ Why,” answered Ludovico, “ perhaps a degree or two 
of headiness.” 

“ Nay,” said the secretary, “is it not rather a degree or 
two of holiness ? ’ ’ 

“ Ebbene ! ” said the other, “ I stand excellently corrected. 
(Your servant, Messer Tassino,” he said, in parenthesis, to 
a pert and confident young exquisite, who held himself 
arrogantly forward of the group of spectators. The jay re- 
sponded to the attention with a condescending nod. Ludo- 
vico readdressed himself to the secretary.) “How neatly 
you put things! It is a degree or two, as you say — between 
the intoxication of the spirit and the intoxication of the 
senses. And is this pretty stranger sacramental wine, and 
hath Heaven vouchsafed us the Grael without the Quest? 
It is a sign of its high favor, Messer Simonetta, of which I 
hope and trust we shall prove ourselves worthy.” 

“And I hope so. Highness,” said the grave secretary. 

“ Hush! ” whispered Ludovico. “ The court opens.” 

There was a little stir and buzz among the spectators who, 
thronging the hall, left a semicircle of clear space about the 
dais; and into this, at the moment, a fellow in a ragged 
gabardine was haled by a guard of city officers. The Duke, 


68 


BEMBO 


seated above, stroked his chin with a glance at the prisoner 
of sinister relish, which, on the thought, he smoothed, with 
a little apologetic cough, into an expression of mild benig- 
nancy. Messer Isanti, planted near at hand amid a very par- 
terre of nobles, envoys, ecclesiastics, bedizened Mres amies 
and great officers of the court who supported their lord on 
the dais, sniggered under his breath till his huge shoulders 
shook. 

The Jew was charged with a very heinous offence — sweat- 
ing coins, no less. He was voluble and nasal over his inno- 
cence, until one of the officers flicked him bloodily on the 
mouth with his mailed hand. 

“Nay,” said Bembo, shrinking; “that is to give the 
poor man a dumb advocate, methinks.” 

The Duke applauded — eliciting some louder applause from 
Ludovico — and forbade the fellow sternly to strike again 
without orders. A sudden sigh and movement seemed to 
ripple the congregated faces and to subside. The prisoner, 
however, was convicted, on sound enough evidence, and 
stood sullen and desperate to hear his sentence. Galeazzo 
eyed him covetously a moment; then turning to a clerk of 
the court who knelt beside him with his tablets ready, bade 
that obsequious functionary proclaim the penalty by statute 
obtained against all coiners or defacers of the ducal image. 
It was bad enough — breaking on the wheel — to pass without 
deadlier revision; yet to such, and to the high will or caprice 
of his lord. Master Scrivener humbly submitted it. 

Then, to the dumbfoundering of all, did his Magnifl- 
cence appeal, with a smile, to the little Parablist at his 
shoulder: 

“ Mi’ amico; thou hearest? What say’st ? ” 

“Lord,” answered Bernardo, in the soft, clear young 
voice that all might hear like a bird’s song in the stillness 
after rain, “ this wretch hath defaced thy graven image.” 

“It is true.” 


A TALE OF ITALY 69 

“ What if, in a more impious mood, he had dared to raise 
his hand against thyself?,” 

“ Ha! He would be made to die — not pleasantly.” 

“ Is to be broken on the wheel pleasant? ” 

” Well, the dog shall hang.” 

‘ ‘ Still for so little ? Why, were he Cain he could pay no 
higher. Vainest thy life, then, at a pinch of gold dust? 
This is to put a premium on regicide.” 

The Duke bit his lip, and frowned, and laughed vexedly. 

‘ ‘ How now, Bernardino ? ’ ’ 

“ Lord, I am young — a child, and without comparative 
experience. I pray thee put this rogue aside, while we 
consider.” 

Galeazzo waved his hand, and the Jew, staring and 
stumbling, was removed. Another, a creature gaunt and 
wolfish, took his place. What had he done? He had 
trodden on a hare in her form, and, half-killing, had de- 
spatched her. Why ? asked Bembo. To still her tell-tale 
cries, intimated the wretched creature. Galeazzo’ s eyes 
gleamed; but still he called upon Heaven to sentence. In 
such a case? Men glanced at one another half terrified. 
Any portent, even of good, is fearful in its rising. Bembo 
turned to the kneeling clerk. 

“ Come, Master Scrivener! A little offence, in any case, 
and with humanity to condone it.” 

The frightened servant shook his head, with a glance at 
his master. He murmured the worst he dared — that the law 
exacted the extremest penalty from the unauthorized killer 
of game. Bembo stared a moment incredulous, then pounced 
in mock fury at the prisoner: 

“ Wretch! what didst thou with this hare ? ” 

The hind had to be goaded to an answer. 

“ Master, I ate it.” 

“What!” cried the other— “ a monster, to devour thy 
prince’s flesh! ” 


70 


BEMBO 


God knows I did not! ” 

“ Nay, God is nothing to the law, which says you did. 
Else why should it draw no distinction between the crimes 
of harecide and regicide ? Thou hast eaten of thy prince.” 

“Well, if I have I have.” 

‘ ‘ Thou art anthropophagous. ’ ’ 

“Mercy!” 

“No shame to thee — a lover of thy kind” (the saint 
chuckled). “And no cannibal neither, since we have made 
game of thy prince.” He chuckled again, and turned mer- 
rily on the Duke. ‘ ‘ Is the hare to be prince, or the prince 
hare ? And yet, in either case, O Galeazzo, I see no way for 
thee out of this thy loving subject’s belly! ” 

The tyrant, half captivated, half furious, started forward. 

“ Give him,” he roared — and stopped. “ Give him,” he 
repeated, “ a kick on his breech and send him flying. 
Nay! ” he snarled, “even that were too much honor. Give 
him a scudo with which to buy an emetic. ’ ’ 

Bembo smiled and sighed: “ I begin to see daylight”; 
and Eudovico, after laughing enjoy ingly over his broth- 
er’s pleasantry, exclaimed audibly to Simonetta: “This 
is the very wedding of human wit and divine. I seem to 
see the air full of laughing cherubs having my brother’s 
features.” 

Now there brake into the arena one clad like an artificer 
in a leathern apron; a sinewy figure, but eloquent, in his 
groping hands and bandaged face, of some sudden blight of 
ruin seizing prime. And he cried out in a great voice: 

“A boon, lord Duke, a boon! I am one Eupo, an armorer, 
and thou seest me! ” 

“ Certes,” said the Duke. “Art big enough.” 

“ O lord! ” cried the shattered thing, “ let me see justice 
as plain with these blinded eyes.” 

“ Well, on whom ? ” 

“ Eord, on him that took me sleeping, and struck me for- 


A TALE OF ITALY 


71 

ever from the rolls of daylight, sith I had cursed him for the 
ruin of my daughter.” 

Galeazzo shrugged his shoulders. 

This thine assailant — ^is he noble ? ” 

‘ ‘ Master, as titles go. ’ ’ 

“Wert a fool, then, to presume. He were like else to have 
made it good to thee. Now, an eye for — ’ ’ but he checked 
himself in the midst of the enormous blasphemy. 

“Judge thou, my guardian angel,” he murmured meekly. 

“ What! ” answered the boy, with a burning face, “ needs 
this revision by Heaven ? ’ ’ And he cried terribly : ‘ ‘ Master 
armorer, summon thy transgressor! ” 

For a moment the man seemed to shrink. 

“Nay,” cried the saint, “thou need’st not. I see the 
hand of God come forth and write upon a forehead.” His 
eyes sparkled, as if in actual inspiration. “ Tassino! ” he 
cried, in a ringing voice. 

(“ He heard me address him,” thought Ludovico, curious 
and watchful.) 

At the utterance of that name, the whole nerve of the 
audience seemed to leap and fall like a candle-flame. Gale- 
azzo himself started, and his lids lifted, and his mouth creased 
a moment to a little malevolent grin. For why? This 
Tassino, while too indifierent a skipjack for his jealousy, 
was yet the squire amoroso, the lover comme il faut to his 
own correct Duchess, Madam Bona. 

A minute’s tickling silence was ended by the stir and pert 
laugh of the challenged himself, as he left the ring of spec- 
tators and sauntered into the arena. It was a little showy 
upstart, to be sure, as ebulliently curled and groomed as her 
Grace’s lap-dog, and sharing, indeed, with Messer Tinopino 
the whole present caprice of their mistress’s spoiling. His 
own base origin and inherent vulgarity, moreover, seeming 
to associate him with the ducal brutishness (an assumption 
which Galeazzo rather favored than resented), confirmed in 


72 


BEMBO 


him a self-confidence which had early come to see no bounds 
to its own viciousness or effrontery. 

Now he cocked one arm akimbo, and stared with insuffer- 
able insolence on the pronouncer of his name. 

“ Know’ St me, prophet?” bawled he. “Not more than 
I thee, methinks. Wert well coached in this same in- 
spiration.” 

“ Well, indeed,” answered Bembo. “ Thou hast said it. 
It was God spake in mine ear. ’ ’ 

Tassino laughed scornfully. It was a study to see these 
young wits opposed, the one such plated goods, the other so 
silver pure. 

‘ ‘ In the name of this lying carle, ’ ’ he cried, ‘ ‘ what spake 
He?” 

“ He said,” said Bembo quietly, “ ‘ let the false swearer 
remember Ananias! ’ ” 

Then in a moment he was all ruffled and combative, like a 
young eagle. 

“ Answer! ” he roared. “Didst thou this thing ? ” 

Now, a woman-petted, cake-fed belswagger is too much 
of an anomaly for the test of nerves. Tassino, shouted at, 
gave an hysteric jump which brought him to the very brink 
of tears. He was really an ill-bred little coward, made 
arrogant by spoiling. He had the greatest pity and tender- 
ness for himself, and to any sense of his being lost would 
always respond with a lump in his throat. Now he sud- 
denly realized his position, alone and baited before all — no 
petticoat to fly to, no sympathy to expect from a converted 
tyrant, none from a mob which, habitually the butt to his 
viciousness, would rejoice in his discomfiture. Actually the 
little beast began to whimper. 

‘ ‘ Barest thou ! ” he cried, stamping. 

“ Didst thou this thing ? ” repeated Bernardo. 

“ It is no business of thine.” 

“ Didst thou this thing ? ” 


A TALE OF ITALY 


73 


“ An oafs word against ” 

“ Didst thou this thing ? ” 

“ Lord Duke! ” appealed Tassino. 

“ Didst thou this thing? ” 

The victim fairly burst into tears. 

“If Isay no “ 

“ Die, Ananias! “ shouted the Duke. His eyes gleamed 
maniacally. He half rose in his chair. He seemed as if 
furious to foreclose on a dinouement his superstition had 
already anticipated. Tassino fell upon his knees. 

“ I did it! “ he screamed. 

The Duke sank back, his lips twitching and grinning. 
Then he glanced covertly at Bembo, and rubbed his hands 
together, with a motion part gloating, part deprecatory. 
The Ser Ludovico’s eyes, shaded under his palm, were very 
busy, to and fro. Bembo stood like frowning marble. 

‘ ‘ The law. Master Scrivener ? ’ ’ said he quietly. 

The kneeling clerk murmured from a dry throat: 

‘ ‘ Holy sir, it takes no cognizance of these accidents. The 
condescensions of the great compensate them.’’ 

The Parablist, his lips pressed together, nodded gravely 
twice or thrice. 

“ I see,” he said; “acondescension which ruins two lives.” 

He addressed himself, with a deadly sweetness, to the 
Duke. 

“ I prithee, who standest for God’s vicegerent, call up the 
Jew to sentence.” 

Jehoshaphat was produced, and placed beside the blub- 
bered, resentful young popinjay. The saint addressed him: 

“ Wretch, thou art convicted of the crime of defacing the 
Duke’s image; and he at thine elbow of defacing God’s 
image. Shall man dare the awful impiety to pronounce the 
greater guilt thine ? Yet, if it merits death and mutilation, 
what for this other ? ’ ’ 

He paused, and a stir went through the dead stillness of 


74 


BEMBO 


the hall. Then Bembo addressed one of the tipstaves with 
ineffable civility: 

“ Good oflScer, this rogue hath sweated coins, say’st? ” 

“ Ay, your worship,” answered the man; “ a hundred 
gold ducats, if a lire. Shook ’em in a leathern bag, a’ did, 
like so much rusted harness.” 

Bembo nodded. 

“They are forfeit, by the token; and he shall labor to 
provide other hundred, with cost of metal and stamping.” 

Jehoshaphat, secure of his limbs, shrieked derisive: 

“God of Ishril! O, yes! O, to be sure! I can bleed 
moneys! ” 

“ Nay,” said the saint, “ but sweat them. Go! ” 

The coiner was dragged away blaspheming. He would 
have preferred a moderate dose of the rack; but the standard 
set by his sentence elicited a murmur of popular approval. 
From all, that is to say, but Tassino, who saw his own fate 
looming big by comparison. He rose and looked about him 
desperately, as if he contemplated bolting. The spectators 
edged together. He whinnied. Suddenly the stranger’s 
voice swooped upon him like a hawk: 

“ Man’s image shall be restored; restore thou God’s.” 

The little wretch screamed in a sudden access of passion : 

“ I don’t know what you mean! Leave me alone. It was 
his own fault, I say. Why did he insult me ? ” 

“ Restore thou this image of God his sight,” said Bembo 
quietly. 

“You know I cannot! ” 

“Thou canst not? Then an eye for an eye, as it was 
spoken. Take ye this wicked thing, good oflScers, and blind 
him even as he blinded the poor armorer.” 

A vibrant sound went up from the spectators, and died. 
Messer Ludovico veiled his sight, and, it might be said, his 
laughter. Tassino was seen struggling and crying in the 
half-fearful clutch of his gaolers. 


A TALE OF ITALY 


75 


“Thou darest not! Dogs! Let me go, I say. What! 
would ye brave Madonna? Lord Duke, lord Duke, help 
me!” ^ 

“ To repentance, my poor Tassino,” cried Galeazzo, lean- 
ing lustfully forward. “ I trow thy part on earth is closed.” 

The little monster could not believe it. This instant fall 
from the heights! He was flaccid with terror as he fell 
screeching on his knees. 

“ Mercy, good stranger! Mercy, dear lord Saint! The 
terror! the torture! I could not suffer them and live. O, 
let me live, I pray thee! — anywhere, anyhow, and I will do 
all; make whatever restitution you impose.” 

As he prayed and wept and grovelled, the saint looked 
down with icy pity on his abasement. 

“Restitution, Tassino!” he cried, “for that murthered 
vision, for that ruined virtue? Wouldst thou even in thine 
impiousness arrogate to thyself such divine prerogatives? 
Yet, in respect of that reason with which true justice doth 
hedge her reprisals, the Duke’s mercy shall still allot thee 
an alternative. Sith thou canst not restore his honor or his 
eyes to poor Lupo, thou shalt take his shame to wife, and 
in her seek to renew that image of God which thou hast 
defaced. Do this, and only doing it, know thou thyself 
spared.” 

A silence of stupefaction fell upon the court. What 
would Bona say to this arbitrary disposal of her pet, made 
husband to a common gipsy he had debauched? True, the 
sentence, by virtue of its ethical completeness, seemed an in- 
spiration. But it was a disappointment too. None doubted 
but that the popinjay would subscribe to the present letter 
in order to evade the practice of it by and by. Already the 
paltry soul of the creature was struggling from its submer- 
sion, gasping, and blinking wickedly to see how it could 
retort upon its judge and deliverer. It had been better to 
have trodden it under for once and for good— better for the 


76 


BEMBO 


moral of the lesson, as for all who foresaw some hope for 
themselves in the crushing of an insufferable petty tyranny. 
Galeazzo himself frowned and bit his nails. He would have 
lusted to see Heaven pluck off this vulgar bur for him. 
Only his brother, sleek and smiling, applauded the verdict. 
He had a far-seeing vision, had Ludovico, and perhaps 
already it was allotting a more telling r61e to the little 
aristocrat of San Zeno than had ever been played by the 
cockney parvenu down in the arena. 

Suddenly the Duke was on his feet, fierce and glaring. 

“Answer, dog!” he roared; “ acceptest thou the con- 
dition?” 

Tassino started and sobbed. 

“ Yes, yes. I accept. I will marry her.” 

The Duke took a costly chain from his own neck, and 
hung it about the shoulders of the Parablist. 

“ Wear this,” he said, “in earnest of our love and duty.” 

Then he turned upon the mob. 

“These judgments stand, and all that shall be spoken 
hereafter by our dear monitor and proctor. It is our will. 
Make way, gentlemen.” 

He took Bernardo’s arm and descended the steps. A 
cloud of courtiers hovered near, acclaiming the boy saint and 
Daniel. Messer Ludovico saluted him with fervor. He 
foresaw the millennium in this association of piety with 
greatness. Galeazzo sneered. 

“ Remember that three spoils company, brother,” said he. 
“ Keep thou thine own confessor, and leave me mine.” 

It was then only that Bernardo learned the rank of his 
accoster. 

“Alas! sweet lord,” said he, “is piety such a stranger 
here that ye must entertain him like a king ? ’ ’ 

The Duke laughed loudly and drew him on. He was 
extravagant in his attentions to him — eager, voluble, fever- 
ish. He would point out to him the lavish decorations of his 


A TALE OF ITALY 


77 


house — marbles, sculptures, paintings, the rising fabric of a 
new era — and ask his opinion on all. A word from the child 
at that period would have floored a cardinal or a scafiblding, 
have clothed Aphrodite in a cassock, have made a fete 
champHre of all Milan, or darkened its walls with mourning. 
Messer Lanti, following in their wake, was amazed, and 
dubious, and savage in turns. Earlier in the day the Duke 
had had from him the whole story of his connection with the 
Parablist, up to the moment of their interference in Mon- 
tano’s punishment. 

Meschino me P' he had said, greatly laughing over that 
episode; “yet I cannot but be glad that the old code beat 
itself out on his back. ’T was a reptile well served — a 
venomous, ungrateful beast. A mercy if it has broken his 
fang.” 

That remained to be seen; and in the meantime Carlo, the 
old auxiliary in debauch, was taken again into full favor. 
He accepted the condescension with reserve. The oddest 
new attachment had come to supplant in him some ancient 
devotions that were the furthest from devout. He found 
himself in a very queer mood, between irritable and gentle. 
He had never before felt this inclination to hit hard for 
virtue, and it bewildered his honest head. But it made him 
a dangerous watchdog. 

By and by the Duke carried his protSgS into the Duchess’s 
privy garden. There was a necessary ecoinomy of ornamen- 
tal ground about the castello, though the most was made of 
what could be spared. In a nest of green alleys, and falling 
terraces, and rose-wreathed arches, they came upon the two 
ladies whom Bembo had already seen, themselves as pretty, 
graceful flowers as any in the borders. The young Cather- 
ine sat upon a fountain edge, fanning herself with a great 
leaf, and talking to a flushed, down-looking page, who, it 
seemed likely, had brought news from the court of a recent 
scandal and its sequel. Her shrewd, pretty face took curious 


78 


BEMBO 


stock of the newcomers. She was a pale slip of a girl, lithe, 
bosomless, the green plum of womanhood. Her thin, plain 
dress was green, fitting her like a sheath its blade of corn, 
and she wore on her sleek fair head a cap of green velvet 
banded with a scroll of beaten gold. A child she was, yet 
already for two years betrothed to a Pope’s nephew. His 
presents on the occasion had included a camora of green 
velvet, sewn with pearls as thick as daisies in grass. It 
seemed natural to associate her with spring verdure, so sweet 
and fair she was; yet never, surely, worked a more politic 
little brain under its cap of innocence. 

Hard by, on one of the walks, a woman and a child of 
seven played at ball. These were Bona, and her little son 
Gian-Galeazzo. As the other was spring, so was she sum- 
mer, ripe in figure and mellowed in the passion of mother- 
hood. Her eyes burned with the caress and entreaty of it — 
appealed in loveliness to the fathers of her desires. Her 
beauty, her stateliness, the very milk of her were all sweet 
lures to increase. She loved babies, not men — saw them 
most lusty, perhaps, in the glossy eyes of fools, the breeding- 
grounds of Cupids. She was always a mother before a wife. 

The Duke led Bernardo to her side. Pale as ivory, she 
bent and embraced her boy, and dismissed him to the 
fountain; then rose to face the ordeal. 

“ Hail, judgments of Solomon! ” she said, with a smile 
that quivered a little. ‘ ‘ O believe me, sir, thy fame has run 
before! ” 

“Which was the reason thou dismissedst Gian,” said 
Galeazzo, ‘ ‘ in fears that Solomon would propose to halve 
him ? ” 

He did not doubt her, or wing his shaft with anything but 
brutality. It was his coward way, and, having asserted it, 
he strolled off, grinning and whistling, to the fountain. 

Bona shivered and drew herself up. Her robe was all of 
daffodil, with a writhed golden hem to it that looked like 


A TALE OF ITALY 


79 


a long flicker of flame. On her forehead, between wings of 
auburn hair, burned a great emerald. She seemed to Ber- 
nardo the loveliest, most gracious thing, a vision personi- 
fied of fruitfulness, the golden angel of maternity, warm, 
fragrant, kind-bosomed. He met the gaze of her eyes with 
wonderment, but no fear. 

“Sweet Madonna,” he said, “hail me nothing, I pray 
thee, but the clear herald of our Christ — His mouthpiece 
and recorder. We may all be played upon for truth, so we 
be pure of heart. ’ ’ 

“And that art thou ? No guile ? No duplicity ? No self- 
interest ? ” 

He marvelled. She looked at him earnestly. 

“ Bernardo, didst know this Tassino was my servant ? ” 

“ Nay, I knew it not.” 

“ Wouldst have spared him hadst thou known ? ” 

“ How could I spare him the truth ? ” 

“ But its shame, its punishment?” 

‘ ‘ Greater shame could no man have than to debauch inno- 
cence. His punishment was his redemption.” 

“Ah! I defend him not. Yet, bethink thee, she may have 
been the temptress ? ’ ’ 

“ He should have loathed, not loved her, then.” 

“ Madreperla, mother-of-pearl,” cried Catherine, with a 
little shriek of laughter, from the fountain; “ come and help 
me! I have caught a butterfly in my hand, and my father 
wishes to take it from me and kill it! ” 


CHAPTER VII 


B ernardo wrote to the Abbot of San Zeno: 

“ Most dkar and honored Father, — Many words 
from me would but dilute the wonder of my narrative. 
Also thou lovest brevity in all things but God’s praise. 
Know, then, how I have surpassed expectation in the early 
propagation of our creed, which is by Eove to banish Eaw, 
that old engine of necessarianism. \Here follows a brief re- 
capitulation of the events which had landed him^ a little sweet 
orcLcle of lights in the dark old castello of Milan. '\ Man ” (he 
goes on) “is of all creatures the most susceptible to his 
environments. Thou shalt induce him but to feed on the 
olive branches of Peace in order that he may take their color. 
O sorrow, then, on the false appetites which have warped 
his nature! on the beastly doctrines which, Satan-engen- 
dered, have led him half to believe there is no wrong or 
right, but only necessity! Is there no such thing as discord 
in music, at which even a dog will howl ? Harmony is God 
— so plain. Yet there is a learned doctor here, one Eascaris, 
who disputeth this. My Father, I do not think that learned 
doctors seek so much the intrinsic truth of things as to im- 
press their followers with their perspicacity in the pursuit. 
John led James over- the- way by a “short cut” of three 
miles, and James thought John a very clever fellow. Pray 
for me! . . . 

“ I will speak first of the Duchess, to whom I delivered 
your letter. She is a most sweet lady, with eyes, so kind 
and loving were they, they made me think of those soft stars 

8o 


A TALE OF ITALY 


8i 


which light the flocks to fold. She asked me did I remem- 
ber my mother? ‘ That is a strange question,’ quoth I, ‘ to 
a foundling.’ ‘Ah! ’ said she, ‘ poor child! I had forgot how 
thou fell’ St, a star, into Mary’s lap. I would have taken 
care, for my part, not so to tumble out of heaven.’ ‘ Nay,’ 
I said, ‘ but if thou, a mother there, hadst let slip thy baby 
first?’ ‘What,’ she said, looking at me so strange and 
wistful, ‘ did she follow, then ? ’ My Father, thou know’st 
my fancies. ‘ I cannot tell,’ I said. ‘ Sometimes, in a 
dream, the dim, sad shadow of a woman’s face seems to 
hang over me lying on that altar.’ She held out her arms 
to me, then withdrew them, and she was weeping. ‘ We are 
all wicked,’ she cried; ‘ there is no heart, nor faith, nor 
virtue, in any of us! ’ and she ran away lamenting. Now, 
was not that strange? for she is in truth a lady of great 
virtue, a pure wife and mother, and to me most sweet- for- 
giving for an ill-favor I was forced to do her upon one of her 
servants. But not women nor men know their own hearts. 
They wear the devil’s livery for fashion’s sake, when he 
introduces it on a pretty sister or young gentleman, and so 
believe themselves bound to his service. But it is as easy as 
talking to make virtue the mode. Thou shalt see. 

“ Does not the beautiful Duomo itself stand in their midst, 
the fairest earnest of their true piety ? Could intrinsic base- 
ness conceive this ethereal fabric or, year by year, graft it 
with sprigs of new loveliness ? There is that in them yet 
like a little child that stretches out its arms to the sky. 

“ I have, besides, the greatest, two converts, or half- 
converts, already, my dear Carlo and his Fool. The 
former is a great bull gallant, whom a spark will set roaring 
and a kiss allay. I love him greatly, and he bellows and 
prances, and swearing ‘ I will not ’ follows to the pipe of 
peace. Alas! if I could woo him from a great wrong! It 
will happen, when men see honor whole, and not partisanly. 

In the meantime I have every reason to be charitable to that 
6 


82 


BEMBO 


lady Beatrice, sith she holds herself my mortal enemy. And 
indeed I excuse her for myself, but not for the honest soul 
she keeps in thrall. My Father, is it not a strange paradox, 
that holding the senses such a rich possession and life so 
cheap? Here is one would prolong the body’s pleasure to 
eternity, yet at any moment will risk its destruction for a 
spite. Nathless she is warm, loamy soil for the bearing of 
our right lily of love, and some day shall be fruitful in 
cleanliness. 

“Now the Fool — poor Fool! I have won to temperance, 
and so Carlo growleth, ‘A murrain on thee, spoil-sport! 
What want I with a sober Fool ? Take him, thou, to be 
valet to thy temperance! ’ by which gibe he seeks to cover a 
gracious act. And, lo! I have a Fool for servant, a most 
notable Fool and auxiliary, who, having sworn himself to 
abstinence, would unplug and sink to the bottomless abyss 
every floating hogshead. In sooth the good soul is my 
shadow, and so they call him. ‘ Well,’ says he, ‘ so be it. 
But what sort of fool art thou, to cast a fool for shadow ? ’ 

‘ Why, look,’ says I, for it was sunset on the grass — ‘ at 
least not so great a fool as thou.’ ‘ That may well be,’ says 
he, ‘ for you do not serve Messer Bembo.’ So caustic is he 
— a biting love; yet, as is proper between a man and his 
shadow, equal attached to me as I to him. And so, talking 
of his gift to me, brings me to the greater gifts of the Duke. 

“ O my Father! How can I speak my gratitude to Heaven 
and thy teaching, which brought me so swiftly, so wonder- 
fully, to prevail with that dread man! I think evil is like 
the false opal, which needs but the first touch of pure light 
to shatter it. I have come with no weapon but my little 
lamp of sunshine; and behold! in its flash the base is dis- 
credited and the truth acknowledged. It is all so easy, 
Christ guard me! There is a Providence in what men call 
chance. Only, my Father, pray that thy child be not misled 
by flattery to usurp its prerogatives. Men, in this dim 


A TALE OF ITALY 


83 


world, are all too prone to worship the visible symbols of 
Immortality — to accept the prophet for the Master. I am 
already feted and caressed as if I were a god. The Duke 
hath impropriated to me an income of a thousand ducatos, 
with free residence in the castello, and a retinue to befit a 
prince. At all this I cavil not, sith it affords me the sinews 
to a crusade. But what shall I say to his delegating me to 
the chief magistracy of Milan during his forthcoming ab- 
sence ? for he is on the eve of an expedition into Piedmont, 
touching the lordship of Vercelli, which he claims through 
his wife Bona of Savoy. Carlo, it is true, warns me against 
this perilous exaltation. ‘ Seek’st thou,’ says he, ‘ to depose 
the devil ? Well, the devil, on his return, will treat thee like 
any other palace revolutionist.’ ‘ Nay,’ says I, ‘ the devil 
was never the devil from choice. Restore him to a converted 
dukedom, and he will aspire to be saint of all.’ ‘ Yes,’ he 
said, ‘ I can imagine Galeazzo endowing a hospital for Mag- 
dalenes and washing the poor’s feet. But I will stick to 
thee.’ A dear worldling he is, and only less uncertain than 
his master in these first infant steps towards godliness. For 
vice is very childlike in its self-plumings upon a little knowl- 
edge. Desiring beauty, it tears the rose-bush or clutches 
the moth, and so sickens on disillusionment. Forbearance 
is the wisdom of the great. 

“ The more destructive is a man, the simpler is he. Now, 
my Father, this destroying Duke covets nothing so much as 
the applause of the world for gifts with which, in truth, he 
is ill-endowed. He cannot sing, or rhyme, or improvise but 
with the worst, yet, thinks he, they shall call me poet and 
musician, or burn. Well, he might fiddle over the holo- 
caust, like Nero, and still be first cousin to a peacock. I 
told him so, but in gentler words, when he asked me to 
teach him my method. ‘ To every soul its capacities,’ says 
I, ‘ and mine are not in ruling a great duchy greatly.’ ‘ So 
we are neither of us omnipotent,’ says he, with a smile. 


84 


BEMBO 


‘ Well, I will take the lesson to heart.’ Now, could so 
simple a creature be all corrupt ? 

“ Of more complicated fibre is his brother, the Signior 
Ludovico. Very politic and abiding, he rushes at nothing; 
yet in the end, I think, most things come to him. He is 
gracious to thy child, as indeed are all; yet, God forgive me, 
I find something more inhuman in his gentleness than in 
Galeazzo’s passion. These inexplicable antipathies are 
surely the weapons of Satan; whereby it behoves us to over- 
come them. That same Lascaris attributes them to an ac- 
cidental re- fusion of particles, opposed to other chance 
re-combinations, in a present body, of particles similarly 
antipathetic to us in a former existence — a long ‘ short cut ’ 
over the way again. 

“ Now, as for my days in this poignant city — where even 
the benches and clothes-chests, not to speak of most walls 
and ceilings, yea, and the very stair-posts themselves, are 
painted with crowded devices of scrolls and figures in love- 
liest gold and azure and vermilion — thou mayest believe 
they are strange to me. Amidst this wealth I, thy simple 
acolyte, am glorified, I say, and courted beyond measure. 
Yet fear nothing for me. I appraise this distinction at its 
right market value. The higher the Duke’s favor, the 
greater my presumptive influence. Believe me, dear, my 
urbanity towards his attentions is an investment for my 
Master. I am an honest factor. 

“ In a week the Duke sets out. In the meantime, like an 
ambassador that must suffer present festival for the sake of 
future credit, I sit at feasts and plays; or, perchance, rise to 
denounce the latter for no better than whores’ saturnalia. 
(O my Father! to see fair ladies, the Duchess herself, smile 
on such shameless bawdry!) Whereon the Duke thunders 
all to stop, with threats of fury on the actors to mend their 
ways, making the poor fools gasp bewildered. For how 
had they presumed upon custom ? Bad habit is like the moth 


A TALE OF ITALY 


85 


in fur, so easily shaken out when first detected; so hardly 
when established. Once, more to my liking, we have a 
mummers’ dance, with clowns in rams’ heads butting; and 
again a harvest ballet, with all the seasons pictured very 
pretty. Another day comes a Mantuan who plays on three 
lutes at once, more curious than tuneful; and after him one 
who walks on a rope in the court, a steel cuirass about his 
body. Now happens their festival of the Bacchidce^ a pagan 
survival, but certes sweet and graceful, with its songs and 
vines and dances. Maybe for my sake they purge it of some 
licence. Well, Heaven witness to them what loss or gain 
thereby to beauty. 

“ Often the court goes hunting the wolf or deer — I care 
not; or a-picknicking by the river, which I like, and where 
we catch trouts and lampreys to cook and eat on the green; 
then run we races, perchance, or play at ball. So merry and 
light-hearted — how can wickedness be other than an accident 
with these children of good-nature ? To mark the j okes they 
play on one another — mischievous sometimes — suggests to 
one a romping nursery, which yet I know not. Father, who 
was my mother? I trow we romped somewhere in heaven. 
Once some gallants of them, being in collusion with the 
watch, enter, in the guise of robbers, Messer Secretary 
Simonetta’s house at midnight, and bind and blindfold that 
great man, and placing him on an ass in his nightgear 
(which is an excuse for nothing), carry him through the 
streets as if to their quarters. Which, having gained, they 
unbind; and lo! he is in the inner ward of the castello, the 
Duke and a great company about him and shouts of laughter; 
in which I could not help but join, though it was shameful. 
Next day the Duchess herself does not disdain a wrestling- 
match with the lady Catherine, her adoptive daughter; when 
the lithe little serpent, enwreathing that stately Queen, doth 
pull her sitting on her lap, whereby she conquers. For all 
improvising and stories they have as great a passion as 


86 


BEMBO 


ingenuity; and therein, my gifts by Christ’s ensample lying, 
comes my opportunity. Dear Father, am 1 presumptuous 
in my feeble might, like the boy Phaeton when he coaxed the 
Sun’s reins from Phoebus, and scorched the wry road since 
called the Milky Way ? That is such an old tale as we tell 
by moonlight under trees — such as Christ Himself, the child- 
God, hath recounted to us, sitting shoulder-deep in meadow- 
grass, or by the pretty falling streams. Is He that exacting, 
that exotic Deity, lusting only for adoration, eternally 
gluttonous of praise and never surfeited, whom squeamish 
indoor men, making Him the fetish of their closets, have 
reared for heaven’s type? O, find Him in the blown trees 
and running water; in the carol of sweet birds; in the mines 
from whose entrails are drawn our ploughshares; yea, in 
the pursuit of maid by man! So, in these long walks and 
rests of life, shall He be no less our Prince because He is our 
joyous comrade. For this I know: Not to a pastor, a lord, 
a parent himself doth the soul of the youth go out as to the 
companion of his own age and freedom. 

“ Christ comes again as He journeyed with His Apostles, 
the bright wise comrade, fitting earth to heaven in the 
puzzle of the spheres. We know Him Human, my Father, 
feeling the joy of weariness for repose’ sake; not disdaining 
the cool inn’s sanctuary; expounding love by forbearance. 
He beareth Beauty redeemed- on His brow. Before the clear 
gaze of His eyes all heaped sophistries melt away like April 
snow. He calleth us to the woods and meadows. Quasi- 
modo genifi infantes rationabile sine dolo lac concupiscete, O, 
mine eyelids droop! We are seldom at rest here before two 
o’ the morning. The beds have trellised gratings by day, 
to keep the dogs from smirching their coverlets. Ora pro 
me!^' 


CHAPTER VIII 


T he castle at the Porta Giovia had its glooms as well as 
its pleasances. Indeed, it may be questioned if the 
latter were not rather in proportion to the former as a tiger’s 
gay hide is to the strength and ferocity it clothes. Built 
originally for a great keep or, as it were, breakwater, to stem 
the rush of barbarian seas which were wont to come storm- 
ing down from the northwest, its constructors had aimed at 
nothing less than its everlastingness. So thick were its bas- 
tioned walls, so thick the curtains which divided its inner 
and outer wards, a whole warren of human “ runs” could 
honeycomb without appreciably weakening them. Hidden 
within its screens and massy towers, like the gnawings of a 
foul and intricate cancer, ran dark passages which discharged 
themselves here and there into dreadful dungeons, or secret- 
places not guessed at in the common tally of its rooms. 
These oubliettes were hideous with blotched and spotted 
memories; rotten with the dew of suffering; eloquent, in their 
terror and corruption and darkness, of that same self-sick, 
self-blinded tyranny which, in place of Love and Justice, the 
trusty bodyguards, must turn always to cruelty and thick 
walls for its security. The hiss and purr of subterranean 
fire, the grinding of low-down grated jaws, the flop and echo 
of stagnant water, oozed from a stagnant moat into vermin- 
swarming, human -haunted cellars, — these were sounds that 
spoke even less of grief to others than of the hellish ferment 
in the soul of him who had raised them for his soul’s pacify- 
ing. Himself is for ever the last and maddest victim of a 
despot’s oppression. 


87 


88 


BEMBO 


There had been stories to tell, could the coulter of Time 
once have cut into those far-down vaults, and his share laid 
open. Now this was so far from promising, that their 
history and mystery were in process of being still further 
overlaid and stifled under accumulations of superstructure. 
Francesco, the great Condottiere, the present Duke’s father, 
had been the first to realize dimly how a tyrant, by converting 
his self- prison into a shrine for his aestheticism, might enjoy 
a certain amelioration of his condition. It was he who, 
yielding an older palace and its grounds to the builders of 
the cathedral, had transferred the ducal quarters to the great 
fortress, which henceforth was to be the main seat of the 
Sforzas. Here the first additions and rebuildings had been 
his, the first decorations and beautify ings — tentative at the 
best, for he was always more a soldier than a connoisseur. 
The real movement was inaugurated by his successor, and 
continued, as cultivation was impressed on him, on a scale 
of magnificence which was presently to make the splendor of 
Milan a proverb. Galeazzo, an indifferent warrior, to whose 
rule but a tithe of the territory once gathered to the Vis- 
conti owned allegiance, contented his ambitions by rallying 
an army of painters and sculptors and decorators to the 
glorification of his houses at Milan, Cremona, and his ances- 
tral petted Pavia, — after all a worthier r6le than the con- 
queror’s for a good man; but then, this man was so bad that 
he blighted everything he touched. It is true that the dis- 
use of secret torture would have been considered, and by 
men more enlightened than he, so little expedient a part of 
any ethical or sesthetical “improvement” of an existing 
house, as that a premium would be put thereby on assassi- 
nation. Yet Galeazzo’ s death-pits were never so much a poli- 
tic necessity as a resource for cruelty in idleness. He would 
descend into them with as much relish as he would reclimb 
from, to his halls above, swelling and bourgeoning with 
growth of loveliness. The scream of torture was as grateful 


A TALE OF ITALY 


89 


to his ears as was the love- throb of a viol; the scum bubbling 
from his living graves as poignant to his nostrils as was the 
scent of floating lilies. He continued to make his house 
beautiful, yet never once dreamt, as a first principle of its 
reclamation to sweetness, of cutting out of its foundations 
those old cesspools of disease and death. 

One night he sat in his closet of the Rocca, a little four- 
square room dug out of the armorer’s tower, and having a 
small oratory adjoining. This eyrie w^as so high up as to 
give a comfortable sense of security against surprise. There 
was but one window to it— just a deep wedge in the wall, 
piercing to the sheer flank of the tower. Sweet rushes car- 
peted the floor; the arras was pictured with dim, sacred 
subjects — Ambrosius in his cradle, with the swarm of bees 
settling on his honeyed lips; Ambrosius elected Bishop of 
Milan by the people; Ambrosius imposing penance on Theo- 
dosius for his massacre of the Thessalonicans — and the 
drowsy odors of a pastille, burning in the little purple shrine- 
lamp, robbed the air of its last freshness. 

Another lamp shone on a table, at which the Duke was 
seated somewhat preoccupied with a lute, and his tablets 
propped before him; while, motionless in the shadows oppo- 
site, stood the figure of the Provost-Marshal, its fixed, un- 
regarding eyes glinting in the flame. 

Intermittently Galeazzo strummed and murmured, self- 
communing, or addressing himself, between playfulness and 
abstraction, to the ear of Messer Jacopo: 

“ The lowliest of all Franciscans was St. Francis^ meek mate 
of beasts and birds ^ boasting himself no peer of belted^ stars. 
. . . Ha! a good line, Jacopo, a full significant line; I 

dare say it, our Parablist despite. Listen.” (He chaunted 
the words in a harsh, uncertain voice, to an accompaniment 
as sorry.) “Hear’st? Belted stars — those moon-ringed 
spheres the aristocracy of the night. Could Messer Bembo 
himself have better improvised ? What think’st ? Be frank.” 


90 


BEMBO 


“ I think of improvising by book,” said Jacopo, short and 
gruff. 

Galeazzo said “ Ha! ” again, like a snarl, and his brow 
contracted. 

“Why, thou unconscionable old surly dog!” he said — 
“why?” 

Jacopo pointed to the tablets. 

“ Your saint asks no notes to his piping. A’ sings like 
the birds.” 

“ Now,’* answered his master, in a deep, offended tone, 
“I’m in a mind to make thee sing on a griU, — ay, and 
dance too. What, dolt! are not first thoughts first thoughts, 
however they may be pricked down? lyook at this, I say; 
flatten thy bull nose on it. Is it not clean, untouched, un- 
revised? Spotless as when issued from Helicon? Beast! 
thou shalt call me, too, an improvisatore. ’ ’ 

The statue was silent. Galeazzo sat glaring and gnawing 
his fingers. 

“ Answer! ” he screeched suddenly. 

“ I will call thee one,” said Jacopo obstinately, “ but not 
the best.” 

The Duke fell back in his chair, then presently was mut- 
tering and strumming with his disengaged fingers on the 
table. 

“No — not the best, not the best — not to rival Heaven! 
Yet, perhaps, it should be the Duke’s privilege.” 

The executioner laughed a little. 

“ The Duke should know how to take it.” 

Galeazzo stopped short, quite vacant, staring at him. 

“ I ’ve heard tell,” said Jacopo, “ how one Nero, a fiddling 
emperor, came to be acknowledged first fiddle of all.” 

He paused, then answered, it seemed, an unspoken in- 
vitation: “ He just silenced the better ones.” 

Galeazzo got hurriedly to his feet. 

“ Blasphemer! thou shalt die for the word. What! this 


A TALE OF ITALY 


91 


Lord’s anointed! A natural songster! no art, no culture in 
his voice — sweet and wild, above human understanding. I 
said nothing. Be damned, and damned alone! Go hang 
thyself like Judas! ” 

“ Well, name my successor first,” said Jacopo. 

The Duke leapt, and with one furious blow shattered 
his lute to splinters on the other’s steel headpiece, then 
stamped upon the fragments, his arms flapping like wing 
stumps, his teeth sputtering a foam of inarticulate words. 
Jacopo, erect under the avalanche, stood perfectly silent 
and impassive. Then, as suddenly as it had burst, the 
storm ended. Galeazzo sank back on his seat, panting and 
nerveless. 

“Well, I am no poet — curse thy block head, and mine for 
trusting to it, — the Muses shall decide — Apollo or Marsyas 
— the Christian Muses and a Christian penance — flaying only 
for heretics. I am no poet nor musician, say’st? Calf! 
what know’st thou about such things? ” He roared again: 
“ What brings thee here, with thy damned butcher’s face, 
scaring my pretty lambs of song ? ” 

“ Thine order.” 

“Mine?” 

“ This astrologer monk, this Fra Capello, was it not ? I 
neither know nor care.” 

“ Dost thou not? A faithful dog! ” 

“ Faithful enough.” 

“ O! art thou ? By what token ? ” 

“ By the token of the quarry run to earth.” 

“ To earth ? Thou hast him ? Good Jacopo! ” 

‘ ‘ This three days past. Had I not told thee so already ? 
Let thine improvising damn thyself, not me.” 

“ The villain! to call himself a Franciscan, a lowly Fran- 
ciscan, and pretend to read the stare! How about his 
prophecy now ? ’ ’ 

“ Why, he holds to it.” 


92 


BEMBO 


“ What! that I have but eleven years in all to reign — less 
than one to live ? ’ ’ 

“Just that — no more,” 

“ Now, is it not a wicked schism from the plain humility 
of his founder ? A curse on their spirituals and conventuals! 
This fellow to claim kinship with the stars — profess to be in 
their confidence, to share heaven’s secrets? Dear Jacopo, 
sweet Jacopo! is it not well to cleanse this earth of such lying 
prophets, that truth may have standing-room ? ’ ’ 

“ Ask truth, not me.” 

“ Nay, not to grieve truth’s heart — the onus shall be ours. 
This same Franciscan — this soothsaying monk — where hast 
lodged him ? ’ ’ 

“ In the ‘Hermit’s Cell.’ ” 

“Ah, old jester! He shall prove his asceticism thereby. 
Tet practised abstinence save him in such pass. He shall 
eat his words — an everlasting banquet. A fat astrologer, 
by the token, as I hear.” 

“ He went in, fat.” 

“Wretch! wouldst thou starve him? Remember the 
worms, thy cousins. Hath he foretold his end ? ’ ’ 

“ Ay, by starvation.” 

“ He lies, then. Thou shalt take him in extremis^ and, 
with thy knife in his throat, give him the lie. An impostor 
proved. What sort of night is it ? ” 

“ Why, it rains and thunders.” 

‘ ‘ Hush ! Why should we fear rain and thunder ? God 
put His bow in the sky. Jacopo, it is a sweet and fearful 
thing to be chosen minister of one of His purifications — 
Noah, and Lot, and now thy prince.” 

“ Purification ? ” said the executioner: “ By what ? ” 

“ By love, thou fool! ” whispered Galeazzo, half ecstatic, 
half furious, with a nervous glance about him. “ There 
were the purifications by water one, one by fire, and a third 
by blood, to the last of which His servants yet testify in the 


A TALE OF ITALY 


93 


spirit of their Redeemer. Blood, Jacopo, thou little monster 
— blood flowing, streams of it, the visible token of the sacri- 
fice. That was our task till yesterday. Now in the end 
comes Love, and calleth for a cleansed and fruitful soil. Let 
us hasten with the last tares — to cut them down, and let their 
blood consummate the fertihzing. Quick: we have no time 
to lose. ’ ’ 

He flung himself from the statue, and tiptoed, in a sort of 
gloating rapture, to the door. 

“ Show me this tare, I say.” 

He went down the tower a few paces, with assured steps, 
then, bethinking himself, beckoned the other to lead. The 
flight conducted them to a private postern, well secured and 
guarded inside and out. As they issued from this, the howl 
of blown rain met and staggered them. Looking up at the 
blackened sky from the depths of that well of masonry, it 
seemed to crack and split in a rush of fusing stars. The 
mad soul of the tyrant leapt to speed the chase. He was 
one with this mighty demonstration — as like a chosen instru- 
ment of the divine retribution. His brain danced and flick- 
ered with exquisite visions of power. He was an angel, a 
destroying angel, commissioned to purge the world of lies. 
” Bring me to this monk!” he screamed through the thunder. 

Deep in the foundation of the northeastern tower the mis- 
erable creature was embedded, in a stone chamber as utterly 
void and empty as despair. The walls, the floor, the roof, 
were all chiselled as smooth as glass. There was not any- 
where foothold for a cat — nor door, nor trap, nor egress, nor 
window of any kind, save where, just under the ceiling, the 
grated opening by which he had been lowered let in by day 
a haggard ghost of light. And even that wretched solace 
was withdrawn as night fell — became a phantom, a diluted 
whisp of memory, sank like water into the blackness, and 
left the fancy suddenly naked in self-consciousness of hell. 
Then Capello screamed, and threw himself towards the last 


94 


BEMBO 


flitting of that spectre. He fell and bruised his limbs hor- 
ribly: the very pain was a saving occupation. He struck 
his skull, and revelled in the agonized dance of lights the 
blow procured him. But one by one they blew out; and in 
a moment dead negation had him by the throat again, roll- 
ing him over and over, choking him under enormous slabs 
of darkness. Now, gasping, he cursed his improvidence in 
not having glued his vision to the place of the light’s going. 
It would have been something gained from madness to hold 
and gloat upon it, to watch hour by hour for its feeble re- 
dawn. Among all the spawning monstrosities of that pit, 
with only the assured prospect of a lingering death before 
him, the prodigy of eternal darkness quite overcrowed that 
other of thirst and famine. 

Yet the dawn broke, it would seem, before its due. Had 
he annihilated time, and was this death ? He rose rapturously 
to his feet, and stood staring at the grating, the tears gush- 
ing down his fallen cheeks. The bars were withdrawn; 
and in their place was a lamp intruded, and a face looked 
down. 

‘ ‘ Capello, dost thou hunger and thirst ? ” 

The voice awoke him to life, and to the knowledge of who 
out of all the world could be thus addressing him. He an- 
swered, quaveringly: “ I hunger and thirst, Galeazzo.” 

“ It is a beatitude, monk,” said the voice. “ Thou shalt 
have thy fill of justice.” 

“Alas! ” cried the prisoner: “justice is with thee, I fear, 
an empty phrase.” 

“ Comfort thyself,” said the other: “ I shall make a full 
measure of it. It shall bubble and sparkle to the brim like 
a great goblet of Malmsey. Dost know the wine Malmsey, 
monk? — a cool, heady, fragrant liquid, that gurgles down 
the arid throat, making one o’ hot days think of gushing 
weirs, and the green of grass under naked feet.” 

The monk fell on his knees, stretching out his arms. 


A TALE OF ITALY 


95 


“ I ask no mercy of thee, but to end me without torture.” 

‘ ‘ Torture, quotha! ’ ’ cried the fiend above — ‘ ‘ What torture 
in the vision of a wine cup crushed, or, for the matter of that, 
a feast on white tables under trees! Picture it, Capello : the 
quails in cold jelly; the melting pasties; the salmon- trout 
tucked under blankets of whipped cream; the luscious 
peaches, and apricots like maiden’s cheeks. Why, art not a 
Conventual, man, and rich in such experiences of the belly ? 
And to call ’em torture — fie! ” 

“ Mercy!” gasped the monk. His swollen throat could 
hardly shape the word. Galeazzo laughed, and bent over. 

‘ ‘ Answer, then : how long am I to live ? ’ ’ 

By justice, forever.” 

“What! live forever on an empty phrase? Then art 
thou, too, provisioned for eternity.” 

He held out his hand: 

‘ ‘ Art humbled at last, monk, or monkey ? How much for 
a nut ? ’ ’ 

Leaping at the mad thought of some relenting in the voice 
and question, the prisoner ran under the outstretched hand, 
and held up his own, abjectly, fulsomely. 

“ Master, give it me — one — one only, to dull this living 
agony! ” 

“A sop to thee, then,” cried Galeazzo, and dropped a 
chestnut. The monk caught it and, cracking it between his 
teeth, roared out and fell spitting and sputtering. He had 
crunched upon nothing more savoury than a shell filled 
up with river slime. The Duke screamed and hopped with 
laughter. 

“ Is not that richer than quail, more refreshing than 
Malmsey ? ’ ’ 

The monk fell on his knees: 

“Now hear me, God! ” he gabbled awry: “ Let not this 
man ever again know surcease from torment, in bed, at board, 
in his body, or in his mind. Let his lust consummate 


96 


BEMBO 


in frostbite; let the worm burrow in his entrails, and the 
maggot in his brain. May his drink be salt, and his 
meat bitter as aloes. May his short lease of wicked life be 
cancelled, and death seize him, and damnation wither in the 
moment of his supreme impenitence. Darken his vision, so 
that forevermore it shall see despair and the mockery of 
fruitless hope. Bet him walk a self-conscious leper in the 
sunshine, and strive vainly to propitiate the loathing in eyes 
in which he sees himself reflected an abhorred and filthy 
ape. May the curse of Assisi ” 

Galeazzo screamed him down : 

“Quote him not — beast — vile apostate from his teaching! ” 

For a moment the two battled in a war of screeching 
blasphemy: the next, the grate was flung into place, the 
light whisked and vanished, a door slammed, and the black- 
ness of the cell closed once more upon the moaning heap in 
its midst. 

Quaking and ashen, babbling oaths and prayers, Galeazzo 
flung back to his closet. 

“ Bring wine! ” he shook out between his teeth to Jacopo. 

When it came, he tasted, and flung it from him. 

“Salt!” he shrieked. His fancy quite overpowered his 
reason. “ O, God, I am poisoned! ” 

He rose, staggering, and entered his oratory, and cast 
himself on his knees before the little shrine. 

“Not from this man,” he protested, whimpering and 
writhing; “ Bord, not from this man — I know him better 
than Thou — a recusant, a sorcerer! Be not deceived because 
of his calling. To curse thine anointed! kill him, Bord — 
kill the blasphemer — I hold him ready to Thy hand! Good 
sweet St. Francis, I but weed thy pastures — a wicked false 
brother, tainting the fold. How shall love prevail, this 
poison at its root ? — Poison! O, my God, to be stricken for- 
evermore! life’s fruit to change to choking ashes in my 
mouth! It cannot be — I, Galeazzo the Duke — yet I taunted 


A TALE OF ITALY 


97 


him with visions: what if I have caught the infection of 
mine own imagination — too fearful, spare me this once. 
Lord God, consider — as I put it to Thee — now — like this — 
listen. To starve with him should be but a fast enlarged. 
What then ? Some, honest ascetics, no Conventuals, so push 
abstinence to ecstasy as that they may cross the lines of 
death in a dream, and wake without a pang to heaven 
gained. If he does not, should he suffer, he is properly 
condemned for a gross pampered brother, false to his vows, 
unworthy Thine advocacy. Now, call the test a fair one. 
Chain back this dog that ravens to tear me. How, so 
stricken, made corrupt, could I work Thy will but through 
corruption? Hush! Thou meanest it not — only as a jest? 
Give me some sign, then. Ah! Thou laugh’st — very 
quietly, but I hear Thee. Canst not deceive Galeazzo — 
ha-ha! between me and You, Lord, between me and You! 
Silence, thou dog monk ! What dost thou here ? Es- 
caped! by God, get back — the first word was mine — thou 
art too late. What! damnation seize thee! Lord! he scorns 
Thy judgment — catch him, hold him — he is there by the 
door! ” 

He sprang to his feet, glaring and gesticulating. 

‘ ‘ Galeazzo! ’ ’ exclaimed Bembo. The boy had mounted to 
the closet unheard. It was his privilege to come unan- 
nounced. He stood a moment regarding the madman in 
amazement and pity, then hurried softly to his side. 

“ What is it! The face again ? ” 

His tone, his entreaty, dispelled the other’s delirium. 
The tyrant gazed at him a minute, slow recognition dawning 
in his eyes; then, of a sudden, broke into a thick fast flurry 
of sobs, and cast himself upon his shoulder. 

“ My Saint,” he wept adoringly — “ My Conscience, my 
little angel! and I had thought thee — nay, but the sign for 
which I prayed art thou given.” 

His emotion gushed inwardly, filling all his channels to 


7 


98 


BEMBO 


gasping. Presently he looked up, with a passionate mur- 
mur and caress. 

“ lyove, with thy red lips like a girl’s! Would that my 
own were worthy to marry with them.” 

Bembo withdrew a little: 

“What wild words are these? Yet, peradventure, the 
giddy babble of a conqueror. O, Galeazzo! hast triumphed 
o’er thyself indeed — casting that old familiar ? chasing him 
hereout ? Why, then, I whom thou hast appointed to be thy 
conscience, interpreting thy rule through truth and love, am 
the more emboldened to beseech the favor for which I 
came.” 

“Ask it only, sweet.” His chest still heaved spasmod- 
ically to the catching of his breath. 

“ It is,” said the boy steadily, “ that thou wouldst give 
me, thy conscience’s delegate, a last justification by the 
sacraments.” 

The Duke smiled faintly, and nodded, and murmured: 
“ I will confess ere midnight, and, fasting, receive the Holy 
Communion before I go to-morrow. Does it please thee? 
Come, then.” 

He re-entered his cabinet, reeling a little, and sat himself 
down, as if exhausted, by the table. 

“ Bernardo,” he said weakly, half apologetically, “ I am 
overwrought: there is wine in that jug: I prithee give it me 
to drink.” 

The boy, unhesitating, handed him the flagon. 

“ It is the symbol of joy redeemed,” he said. “ Put thy 
lips to the chalice, Galeazzo, and take what thy soul needest 
— no more.” 

The Duke lifted the cup shakily, stumbled at its brim, 
steadied himself, and sipped. His eyes dilated and grew 
wolfish — “ I am vindicated,” he stuttered: “ O, sweet little 
Saint! ” — and he drank greedily, ecstatically, and, smacking 
his lips, put down the vessel. 


A TALE OF ITALY 


99 


He was himself again from that draught. “ Bernardo,’* 
he said, in a reassured, half-maudlin confidence, “ canst 
thou read the stars ? ’ ’ 

“Nay,” said the other gravely, “they are the Sybils’ 
books.” 

‘ ‘ True. Y et some essay . ’ ’ 

“ Ay: then flies a comet, cancelling all their sums.” 

‘ ‘ An impious vanity, is it not ? ’ ’ 

“ Truly, I think so.” 

* ‘ And deserving of the last chastisement. ’ ’ 

“ Poor fools, they make their own.” 

“What?” 

“Why, taking colds instead of rest — cramps, chills and 
agues — immense pains, and all for nothing; the dead moon 
for the living sun: nursing all day that they may starve by 
night. God gave us level eyes. The star’s best resting 
place for them is on a hill. We need no more knowledge 
than to read beauty through the wise lens Nature hath pro- 
portioned us. Not God Himself can foretell a future.” 

“Not God?” 

“No, for there is no Future, nor ever will be. The Past 
but eternally prolongs itself to the Present. Heaven or hell 
is the road we tread, and must retrace when we come to the 
brink of the abyss where Time drops sheer into nothing- 
ness. Joy or woe, then, to him the returning wanderer, 
according as he hath provisioned his way. So shall he 
starve, or travel in content, or meet with weary retributions. 
O, in providence, hold thy hand, thinking on this, whenever 
thy hand is tempted! ” 

Galeazzo was amazed, discomfited. This unorthodoxy 
was the last to accommodate itself to his principles of con- 
duct. The Future to him was always an unmortgaged 
reversion, sufficient to pay off all debts to conscience and 
leave a handsome residue for income. He could only ex- 
claim, again, like one aghast: “Ab Future?^* 

LOFC, 


lOO 


. BEMBO 


“Nay,” said Bembo, smiling, “what is the heresy to 
reason or religion ? To foresee the issues of to-day were, for 
Omniscience, to suppress all strains but the angels’ . What 
irony to accept worship from the foredoomed! What insen- 
sate folly wantonly to multiply the devil’s recruits! O, 
Galeazzo, there is no Future for God or Men ! Hope shudders 
at the inexorable word: Kvil presumes on it: it is the lode- 
stone to all dogmatism; the bogey, the weapon of the unversed 
Churchman; the very bait to acquisition and self-greed. Be 
what, returning, ye would find yourselves— no lovelier ambi- 
tion. See, we walk with Christ, the human God and com- 
rade. I have but this hour left him bathing his tired feet in 
the brook. He will follow anon; and all the pretty birds 
and insects and wild-flowers he watched while resting 
will have suggested to him a thousand tales and reflections 
gathered of an ancient lore. He can be full of wonder too, 
but wiser by many moons than we. There is no Future. 
God possesses the Past.” 

The Duke sprang to his feet, and went up and down once 
or twice. This view of a self- retaliatory entity — of a return- 
ing body condemned by natural laws to retraverse every 
point of its upward flight — disturbed him horribly. He 
desired no responsibility in things done and gone. Eternity, 
timely propitiated, was his golden chance. He stopped 
and looked at Bembo, at once inexpressibly cringing and 
crafty. 

“ Bernardino,” murmured he: “I can never get it out of 
my head that whenever thou sayest God thou meanest Gods. 
The gods possess the past? — why, one would fancy somehow 
it ran glibber than the other.” 

Bembo sighed. 

“ Well, why not ? Nature, and Dove, and the Holy Ghost 
— Tria junda in Uno — why not gods ? ’ ’ 

The Duke pressed his hand to his forehead; then ran and 
clasped the boy about the shoulders. 


A TALE OF ITALY 


lOI 


‘ ‘ Adorable little wisdom , ” be cried; ‘ ‘ take my conscience, 
and record on it what tbou wilt! ” 

“ To-morrow,” said Bembo, with a happy smile: “ when 
its tablets are sponged and clean.” 

Galeazzo fawned, showing his teeth. There was some- 
thing in him infinitely suggestive of the cat that, in alternate 
spasms of animalism, licks and bites the hand that caresses 
it. This strange new heresy of a limited omniscience oddly 
affected him. Could it be possible, after all, that the soul’s 
responsibility was to itself alone? In any case so pure a 
spirit as this could represent him only to his advantage. 
Still, at the same time, if God were no more than relatively 
wiser and stronger than himself — why, it was not his theory 
— let the Parablist answer for it — on Messer Bembo’ s saintly 
head fall the onus, if any, of leaving Capello where he was. 
For his own part, he told himself, the God of Moses remain- 
ing in his old place in the heavens, he, Galeazzo, would have 
been inclined to consider the virtuous policy of releasing the 
monk. 

And so he prepared himself to confess and communicate. 


CHAPTER IX 


HE Duke of Milan, confessed, absolved, and his con- 



1 science pawned to a saint, had, on the virtue of that 
pledge, started in a humor of unbridled self-righteousness 
for the territory of Vercelli. With him went some four 
thousand troops, horse and footmen, a drain of bristling 
splendor from the city; yet the roaring hum of that city’s 
life, and the flash and sting thereof, were not appreciably 
lessened in the flying of its hornet swarm. Rather waxed 
they poignant in the general sense of a periodic emancipation 
from a hideous thralldom. The tyrant was gone, and for a 
time the intolerable incubus of him was lifted. 

But, for the moment, there was something more — a con- 
sciousness, within the precincts of the palace and beyond 
them, of a substituted atmosphere, in which the spirit ex- 
perienced a strange self-expansion — other than mere relief 
from strain — which was foreign to its knowledge. Men felt 
it, and pondered, or laughed, or were sceptical according as 
their temperaments induced them. So, in droughty days, 
the little errant winds that blow from nowhere, rising and 
falling on a thought, affect us with a sense of the unaccount- 
able. There was such a sweet odd zephyr abroad in Milan. 
The queer question was. Was the little gale a little mounte- 
bank gale, tumbling ephemerally for its living, or did it 
represent a permanent atmospheric change ? 

A few days before Galeazzo’s departure, Bernardo — by 
special appointment aistos conscientice ducalis — had, while 
walking in the outer ward of the Gastello with Cicada, hap- 


102 


A TALE OF ITALY 


103 


pened upon the vision of a Franciscan monk, plump and 
rosy, but with inflammatory eyes, entering with Messer 
Jacopo through a private postern in the walls. He had 
saluted the jocund figure reverentially, as one necessarily 
sacred through its calling, and was standing aside with 
dofied bonnet, when the other, halting with an expression 
of good-humored curiosity on his face, had greeted him, 
puffed and asthmatic, in his turn : 

“ Peace to thee, my son! Can this be he of whom it 
might be said, '^*‘Puer natus est nobis: et vocabitur nomen 
ejuSy Magni Consilii Angelus f ” 

The Franciscan had rumbled the query at Jacopo, who 
had shrugged, and answered shortly: “ Well; ’t is Messer 
Bembo.” 

“So?” had responded the monk, gratified; “the David 
of our later generation ? ’ ’ and instantly and ingratiatory he 
had waddled up, and, putting a prosperous hand on Ber- 
nardo’s shoulder, had bent to whisper hoarsely, and quite 
audibly to Cicada, into the boy’s ear: 

“ Child — I know — I am to thank thee for this summons.” 
Then, before Bembo, wondering, could respond: “Ay, ay; 
Saul’s ears are opened to the truth. The stars cannot 
lie. You sent for me, yourself their sainted emissary, to 
confirm the verdict. What! I might have failed to answer 
else. We know the Duke, eh? But, mum! ” 

And with these enigmatic words, and a roguish wink and 
squeeze, he had hurried away again, following the impatient 
summons of Jacopo, who was beckoning him towards a 
flight of open stairs niched in the north curtain, up which 
the two had thereon gone, and so disappeared among the 
battlements. 

Then had Bernardo turned, humor battling with reverence 
in his sensorium, and “ Cicca! ” had exclaimed, with a little 
click of laughter. 

The Fool’s answer had been prompt and emphatic. 


104 


BEMBO 


“ Cracked! ” he had snapped, like a dog at a fly. 

“Who was he?” 

“ Nay, curtail not his short lease. He is yet, and, being, 
is the Fra Capello — may I die else.” 

“ Well, if he is, what is he ? ” 

“ Why, a short-of- breath monk; yet soon destined, if I 
read him aright, to be a breathless monk.” 

“ Nay, thou wilt only new-knot a riddle. I will follow 
and ask the Provost- Marshal, though I love him not.” 

“ Nor he thee, me thinks. Hold back. The butcher looks 
askance at the pet lamb. Well, what wouldst thou? Of 
this same monkish rotundity, this hemisphere of fat, this 
moon-paunch, this great blob of star-jelly, this planet-coun- 
terfeiting frog, this astronomic globe stuffed out with past- 
ies and ortolans? Well, ’t is Fra Capello, I tell thee, an 
astrologer, a diviner by the stars — do I not aver it, though 
I have never set eyes on the man before ? ’ ’ 

“ How know’ St, then?” 

“ Why, true, my perspicacity is only this and that, a poor 
matter of inferences. As, for example, the inference of the 
fingers, that when I burn them, fire is near; or the inference 
of the nose, that when I smell cooking fish, it is a fast day; 
or the inference of the palate, that when I drink water, I am 
a fool. ’ ’ 

“A dear wise fool.” 

“Ay, a wise fool, to know what one and one make. Dost 
thou?” 

“ Two, to be sure.” 

“ Well, God fit thy perspicacity with twins, when thy time 
comes. One out of one and one is enough for me.” 

“ Peace! How know’st this holy father is an astrologer? ” 

“ Inference, sir — merely inference. As, for example again, 
the inference of the ears, that when I mark the substance of 
his whisper to thee, I seem to remember talk of a certain 
Franciscan, who, having predicted by the stars short shrift 


A TALE OF ITALY 


105 


for Galeazzo, and been invited to come and discuss his rea- 
sons, did prove unaccountably coy, though certainly seer 
to his own nativity. Imprimis, the astrologer was reported 
a Conventual and fat; whereby comes in the inference of 
the eye. Now, ‘ Ho-ho! ’ thinks I, ‘ this same swag-bellied 
monk who babbles of stars! Surely it is our Fra Capello? 
And hooked at last ? By what killing bait ? ’ ” 

Here he had touched the boy’s shoulder swiftly, and as 
swiftly had withdrawn his hand, his ineffable expression, 
shrewd and caustic, puckering his face. Bembo had looked 
serious. 

“ Cicca! I do believe thou art madder than any astrologer 
— unless ’ ’ 

“ No! ” had cried the Fool; “lam sober; wrong me not.” 

Then Bembo had repented lovingly : 

“ Pardon, dear Cicca. But, indeed, I understand thee not.” 

“ Why,” I said, “ what killing bait had tempted the 
monk’s shyness at length ? ” 

“What, then?” 

“ Thyself.” 

“I?” 

“Art thou not a star-child and Galeazzo’ s protigi? O, 
pretty, sweet decoy, to draw the astrologer from his cloister! ” 

“ Dost mean that the Duke would use me to question 
the truth of these predictions? Alas! not I, nor any man, 
can interpret nothingness into a text.” 

“Wilt thou tell him so?” 

“Who?” 

“The Duke.” 

“ I have told him so.” 

' ‘ Thou hast ? Then God keep the Franciscan in breath ! ’ ’ 

“ Amen! ” had said Bembo, in all fervor and innocence. 
He had thought the other to mean nothing more than that 
the Duke was designing, on his authority, to win a faulty 
brother from the heresy— as he construed it— of divination. 


io6 


BEMBO 


As he construed it. Young and inexperienced as he was, 
he had yet a prophet’s purpose and vision — ^^the vision which, 
in despite of all traditional beliefs, looks backwards. His 
soft eyes were steadfast to that end which was the beginning. 
No sophistries could beguile him from the essential truth of 
his kind creed. He was an atavism of something vastly 
remoter than Caligula — than any tyranny. He “threw 
back” to the stock of those first angels who knew the 
daughters of men — to the first of an amazed and incredible 
sorrow. By so great a step was he close to the God his sires 
had offended; was close to the parting of the ways between 
earth and heaven, and with all the lore of the since-accumu- 
lated ages to instruct him in his choice of roads. O, believe 
little Bernardo that his was the true insight, the true wis- 
dom! There is no Future, nor ever will be. The past but 
prolongs itself to the present; and all enterprise, all yearn- 
ing, are but to recover the ground we have lost. That truth 
once recognized, the horror of Futurity shall close its gates; 
its timeless wastes shall be no more to us; and we — we shall 
be wandering back, by aeons of pathetic memories, to trace 
to its source the love that gushed in Paradise. 

Three days later the boy — the Duke being gone — was 
strolling, again with Cicada his shadow, on the ramparts. 
It had become something his habit to .take the air, after 
hearing the morning causes, on these outer walls, whence the 
tired vision could stretch itself luxuriantly on leagues of 
peaceful plain. He liked then to be left alone, or at the 
most to the sole company of his dogged henchman, the erst 
Fool. Cicada’s gruff but jealous sympathy was an emollient 
to lacerated sensibilities; his wit was a tonic; his tact the 
fruit of long necessity. No one would have guessed, not 
gentle Bernardo himself, how the little, ugly, caustic creat- 
ure was, when most wilful or eccentric in seeming, watching 
over and medicining his moods of inevitable weariness or 
depression. 


A TALE OF ITALY 


107 


Perhaps he was in such a mood now — induced by that 
passion of the irremediable which occasionally must over- 
take every just judge — as he leaned upon the battlements, 
his cheek propped on his palm, and gazed out dreamily over 
the shining campagna. 

“ Cicca,” he said suddenly, “ what made thee a Fool ? ” 

‘ ‘ Circumstance, ’ ’ answered the other promptly. 

“Ah! ” sighed Bembo — “ that blind brute force of Nature, 
wavering out of chaos. No agent of God — His foe, rather, 
to be anticipated and circumvented. Providence is the true 
wise name for our Master. provideth, of the immensity 
of His love, for and against. He can do no further, nor 
foretell but by analogy the blundering spites of Circum- 
stance. But always He persuades the monster of his interest 
lying more and more in sweet order — dreams of him sleeping 
caged, a lazy, satiated chimera, in the mid-gardens of love.” 

“ Che allegria! ” said Cicada; “ I will go then, and poke 
him in the ribs, and ask him why he made a Fool of me.” 

Bembo smiled and sighed. 

‘ ‘ There is a proof of his blindness. What, in truth, was 
thy origin, dear Cicca? ” 

The Fool came and leaned beside him. 

‘ ‘ Canst look on me and ask ? I was born in this dark age 
of tyranny, and of it; I shall die in it and of it. I have 
never known liberty. Sobriety and reason are empty terms 
to me. Ask of me no fruit but the fruit of mine inheritance. 
A drunken woman in labor will bring forth a drunken child. 
I am Cicada the Fool, lower than a slave, curst pimp to 
Folly.” 

Soft as a butterfly, Bernardo’s hand fluttered to his 
shoulder and rested there. The creature’s dim eyes were 
fixed upon the crawling plain; his face worked with emotion. 

“ There was a time,” he said, “ I understand, when gov- 
ernments were loyal at once to the individual and the state 
— when they wrought for the common weal. In those days, 


io8 


BEMBO 


it would seem certain, riches — anything above a specified in- 
come — must have disqualified a man for office. It is the ideal 
constitution. Corruption will enter else. Wealth, and the 
emulation of wealth, are the moth in stored states. That 
was the age of the republics and all the virtues. I am born, 
alack, after my time. I have held Esau the first saint in the 
calendar. I am not sure I do not do so now, Messer Bembo 
despite.” 

“And I, too, love Esau,” said Bernardo quietly. 

Cicada, amazed, whipped upon him; then suddenly seized 
him in his arms. 

“ Thou dearest, most loving of babes! ” he cried raptur- 
ously; “ sweet saint of all to me! What! did I twit thee, 
mine emancipator, with my curse to thralldom? Eoves 
Esau, quotha! No cant his creed. Child, thou art asphodel 
to that cactus. Put thy foot on this mouth that could so 
slander thee! ” 

“Poor Cicca! ” said Bembo, gently disengaging himself. 
“ Thou rebukest sweetl}^ my idle curiosity.” 

“ Curiosity! ” cried the other. “ Would the angels always 
showed as much! Thou art welcome to all of me I can tell: 
— as, for example, that my mother — exitus acta prohat — was a 
fool, a sweet, pretty, vicious fool; and y^t, after all, not such 
a fool as, having borne, to acknowledge me.” 

“ Poor wretch! Why not ? ” 

“ Why not? Why, for the reason Pasiphae concealed her 
share in the Minotaur. Motley is the labyrinth of Milan. 
My father was a bull. ’ ’ 

“ Well, I am answered.” 

“Ah! thou think’ St I jest. Relatively — relatively only, 
sir, I assure thee. Hast ever heard speak of Filippo Maria, 
the last of the Visconti ? ” 

“ Little, alas! to his credit.” 

“ I will answer in my person to that. He was uglier than 
any bull — a monster so hideous as to be attractive to a cer- 


A TALE OF ITALY 


109 


tain order of frailty. * I inclined his way. Perhaps that was 
my salvation. The child most interests the parent whose 
features it reflects. It is bad-luck to break a mirror; and so 
I was spared — for the labyrinth.” 

‘ ‘ O infamous! He made thee his jester ? ” 

“ And fed me. Let that be remembered to him. When 
the reckoning comes, the bull, not Pasiphae, shall have my 
voice. ’ ’ 

‘ ‘ Hideous! Thy mother ? ’ ’ 

“ Let it pass on that. I need say no more, if a word can 
damn.” 

“ Cicca!” 

He was meat and drink to me, I say.” 

“ Drink, alas! ” 

“ He meant it kindly. When I sparkled, ’t was his own 
wit he felt himself applauding. That was my easy time. 
He died in ’47, and my majest5'^’s Fooldom was appropriated 
incontinent to the titillation of these peasants of Cotignola 
their hairy ears.” 

Hush, and thou wilt be wise! ” 

“ In my grave, not sooner. Francesco, our Magniflcent’s 
father, was so-so for humor — a good, blunt soldier, who ’d 
take his cue of laughter from some quicker wit, then roar it 
out despotically. No sniggerer, like his son, who qualifies 
all praise with envy. Shall I tell thee how I lost Galeazzo’s 
favor ? He wrote a sonnet. ’T was an achievement. A 
Roman triumph has been ceded to less — hardly to worse. 
Lord, sir! there was that applause and hand-clapping at 
court! But Wisdom looked sour. ‘ What, Fool! ’ demanded 
the Duke: ‘dost question its merit?’ ‘Nay,’ quoth Wis- 
dom; ‘ but only the sincerity of the praise. Sign thy next 
with my name, and mark its fate.” He did — actually. 
Poor Wisdom! as if it had been truth the sonneteer desired! 
Never was poor doxy of a Muse worse treated. This was 
exalted like the other; but in a pillory. It made a day’s 


no 


BEMBO 


sport for the mob, at my expense. Was not that pain and 
humiliation enough ? But Galeazzo must visit upon me the 
rage of his mortification. Well, when he was done with me, 
Messer Isanti, high in favor, begged the remnant of my folly, 
and it was thrown to him. The story leaked out; I had had 
so many holes cut in me. It had been wiser to seal my lips 
with kindness. But the Duke, as you may suppose, loves 
me to this day.” 

As he spoke, they turned an angle of the battlements, and 
saw advancing towards them, smiling and insinuative, the 
figure of Tassino. Bernardo started, in some wonder. He 
had not set eyes on this dandiprat since his public condemna- 
tion of him, and, if he thought of him at all, had believed 
him gone to make the restitution ordered. Now he gazed 
at him with an expression in which pity and an instinctive 
abhorrence fought for precedence. 

The young man was brilliantly, even what a later genera- 
tion would have called “ loudly,” dressed. He had emerged 
from his temporary pupation a very tiger-moth; but the soul 
of the ignoble larva yet obtained between the gorgeous 
wings. Truckling, insinuative, and wicked throughout, 
he accosted his judge with a servile bow, as he stood cring- 
ing before him. Bembo mastered his antipathy. 

“ What! Messer Cavalier,” he said, struggling to be gay. 
“Art returned?” — for he guessed nothing of the truth. 
Then a kind thought struck him. “ Perchance thou comest 
as a bridegroom, bene meritusy 

Tassino glanced up an instant, and lowered his eyes. How 
he coveted the frank audacity of the Patrician swashbuck- 
ler, with which he had been made acquainted, but which 
he found impossible to the craven meanness of his nature. 
To dare by instinct — how splendid! No doubt there is 
that fox of self-conscious pusillanimity gnawing at the ribs 
of many a seeming-brazen upstart. He twined and un- 
twined his fingers, and shook his head, and sobbed out a 


A TALE OF ITALY 


III 


sigh, with craft and hatred at his heart. Bernardo looked 
grave. 

“Alas, Messer Tassiuo! ” said he: “think how every 
minute of a delayed atonement is a peril to thy soul.” 

This sufficed the other for cue. 

“Atone ? ” he whined: “ wretch that I am! How could a 
hunted creature do aught but hide and shake ? “ 

“ Hunted!” 

“ O, Messer Bembo! ’t was so simple for you to let loose 
the mad dog, and blink the consequences for others. ’ ’ 

“ Mad dog! ” 

“ Now don’t, for pity’s sake, go quoting my rash simile. 
Hast not ruined me enough already ? ” 

“Alas, good sir! What worth was thine estate to pledge? 
I had no thought but to save thee for heaven.” 

“And so let loose the Duke, that Cerberus? O, I am 
well saved, indeed, but not for heaven! Had it not been for 
the good Jacopo taking me in and hiding me, I had been 
roasting unhousel’d by now.” 

“ Tassino, thou dost the Duke a wrong. ’T was thy fear 
distorted thy peril. He is a changed man, and most inclined 
to charity and justice.” 

Tassino let his jaw drop, affecting astonishment. 

“Since when?” 

“ Since the day of thy disgrace.” 

The other shook his head, with a smile of growing 
effrontery. 

“ Why, look you, Messer Bembo,” he said: “ you repre- 
sent his conscience, they tell me, and should know. Yet 
may not a man and his conscience, like ill-mated consorts, 
be on something less than speaking terms ? ” 

He laughed, half insolent, half nervous, as Bernardo re- 
garded him in silence with earnest eyes. 

“Supposing,” said he, “you were to represent, of your 
holy innocence and credulity, a little more and a little 


II2 


BEMBO 


sweeter than the truth ? Think’ st thou I should have dared 
reissue from my hiding, were Galeazzo still here to repi£sent 
his own ? If I had ever thought to, there was that buried 
a week ago in the walls yonder would have stopp|^ me 
effectively.” ^ " " 

“Buried — in the walls! What?” * 

‘ ‘ Dost not know ? Then ’ t is patent he is not all-confiding 
in his conscience. And yet thou should’ st know. ’T is 
said thou lead’st him by the nose, as St. Mark the lion. 
Well, I am a sinner, properly persecuted; yet, to my erring 
perceptives, ’ t is hard to reconcile thy saintship with thy 
subscribing to his sentence on a poor Franciscan monk, a 
crazy dreamer, who came to him with some story of the 
stars.” 

“ 7 f > » 

“ O, I cry you mercy! I quote Messer Jacopo, who was 
present. ‘ Deserving of the last chastisement ’ — were not 
those thy words? And Omniscience dethroned — a bewil- 
dered mortal like ourselves ? Anyhow, he held thy saint- 
ship to justify his sentence on the monk.” 

“ What sentence ? ” 

“ Wilt thou come and see? I have my host’s pass.” 

He staggered under the shock of a sudden leap and 
clutch. Young strenuous hands mauled his pretty doublet; 
sweet glaring eyes devoured his soul. 

“ I see it in thy face! O, inhuman dogs are ye all! Show 
me, take me to him! ” 

Tassino struggled feebly, and whimpered. 

“ Tet go: I will take thee: I am not to blame.” 

Shaking, but exultant in his evil little heart, he broke 
loose and led the way to a remote angle of the battiements, 
where the trunk of a great tower, like the drum of a hinge, 
connected the northern and eastern curtains. This was that 
same massy pile in whose bowels was situate the dreadful 
oubliette known as the “ Hermit’s Cell ” : a grim, ironic title 


A TALE OF ITALY 


113 

signifying deadness to the world, living entombment, utter 
abandonment and self-obliteration. It was delved fathoms 
deep; quarried out of the bed-rock; walled in further by a 
mountain of masonry. Tyranny sees an Bnceladus in the 
least of its victims. On so exaggerated a scale of fear must 
the sum of its deeds be calculated. 

Here the Provost- Marshal had his impregnable quarters. 
Looking down, one might see the huge blank bulge of the 
tower enter the pavement below unpierced but by an occa- 
sional loop or eyelet hole. Its only entrance, indeed, was 
from the rampart- walk; its direct approach by way of the 
flying stair- way, up which Bembo had seen the monk dis- 
appear. His heart burned in his breast as he thought of 
him. There was a fury in his blood, a sickness in his 
throat. 

A sentry, lounging by the door, offered, as if by preconcert 
with Tassino, no bar to his entrance. But, when Cicada 
would have followed, he stayed him. 

“ Back, Fool! ” he said shortly, opposing his halberd. 

Cicada struggled a moment, and desisted. 

“ A murrain on thy tongue,” snapped he, “ that calls me 
one! ” 

The sentry laughed, and, having gained his point, pro- 
duced a flask leisurely from his belt. 

“ What! art thou not a fool?” said he, unstoppering it, 
and preparing to drink. 

“Understand, I have forsworn all liquor,” said Cicada, 
with a wry twinkle. 

“ So art thou certainly a fool,” said the sentry, eye and 
body guarding the doorway, as he raised the horn. 

“Hist!” whispered Cicada, staying him: “this remote- 
ness — that damning gurgle — come! a ducat for a mouthful! 
Be quick, before he returns! ” 

The soldier, between cupidity and good-nature, laughed 
and handed over the flask. “ Done on that! ” said he. But 
9 


BEMBO 


1 14 

on the instant he roared out, as the other snatched and bolted 
with his property. 

“ How, thou bloody filcher! Give me back my wine! 

Cicada crowed and capered, dangling his spoil. 

“Judas! for a dirty piece of silver to betray temperance! “ 

The sentry, with a furious oath, made at him. He 
dodged; eluded; finally, under the very hands of his pur- 
suer, threw the flask into a corner, and, as the other dived 
for it, slipped by and disappeared into the tower. The 
soldier, cursing and panting in his wake, ran into the arms 
of an impassive figure — staggered, fell back, and saluted. 

Messer Jacopo eyed the delinquent a long minute without 
a word. He had been silent witness, within the guard-room, 
of all the little scene, and was considering the penalty meet 
to such a breach of orders and discipline. 

There had been something of pre- arrangement in this mat- 
ter between him and Messer Tassino. The two were in a 
common accord as to the loss and inconvenience to be 
entailed upon themselves by any reform of existing institu- 
tions — comprehensively, as to the menace this stranger was 
to their interests. It would be well to demonstrate to him 
the unreality of his ’influence with Galeazzo. Tet him see 
the starving monk, in evidence of his power’s short limits. 
It was possible the sight might kill his presumption forever: 
return him disillusioned to obscurity. 

So his presence here had been procured, with orders to the 
sentry to debar the Fool. Jacopo wanted no shrewd cricket 
at the boy’s side, to leaven the horror for him with his song 
of cheer. The full impressiveness of the awful scene must 
be allowed to overbear his soul in silence. This sentry had 
erred rather foolishly. 

It abated nothing of the terror of the man that no sign of 
passion ever crossed his face, nor word his lips. He turned 
away, not having uttered a sound; and left the delinquent 
collapsed as under a heat-stroke. 


A TALE OF ITALY 


115 

“ Now, let it be no worse than the strappado! ” prayed the 
poor wretch to himself. 

In the meanwhile, Cicada, swift, quivering, alert, was 
descending, like a gulped Jonah, into the bowels of the 
tower. He had no need to pick his path: the well-stair- 
way, like a screw pinning the upper to the underworld, 
transmitted to him every whisper and shuffle of the foot- 
steps he was pursuing. Sometimes, so deceptive were 
the echoes in that winding shaft, he fancied himself tread- 
ing close upon the heels of the chase; yet each little 
loop-lighted landing found him, as he reached it, au- 
dibly no nearer. His mocking mouth was set grim; he 
dreaded, not for himself but for his daring, some name- 
less entrapping wickedness. “ If they design it,” he 
thought — “ if they design it! He shall not hide them from 
me.” 

Suddenly the sounds below died away and ceased. He 
listened an instant; then went down again, turning and turn- 
ing in a nightmare of blind horror. The walls grew dank 
and viscous to his palm. A stumble, and all might end for 
him hideously. Then, at the same moment, weak light and 
a weaker cry greeted him. He descended, still without 
pause — and shot into the glowing mouth of a tiny tunnel, 
where were the figures he sought. 

They stood at a low grating in the wall, which was pierced 
into a subterranean chamber. The bars were thrown open, 
and through the aperture Tassino directed the light of a 
flaring torch he held upon a figure lying prostrate on the 
stones below. Cicada crept, and peered over his master’s 
shoulder. The thing on the floor was grotesque, unnatural 
— a human skeleton emitting noises, heaving in its midst. 
That great bulk had become in its shrinkage a monstrous 
travesty of life. But existence still preyed upon its indis- 
soluble vestments of flesh. 

He clings to life, for a monk,” whispered the Fool. 


ii6 


BEMBO 


With the sound of his voice, Bernardo was sprung into a 
Fury. He lashed upon Cicada, tooth and claw: 

“ Thou knew’ St, and hid it from me in parables! ” 

“ Inference, inference!” cried the Fool. “ I would have 
spared thee.” 

“Spared me? Thus?” 

“Ah! thy shame through wicked sophistries! He was 
foredoomed. Had I interfered, I had been lying myself 
there now, and you a loving servant the less.” 

Bembo flung his arms abroad, as if sweeping all away 
from him. 

“ Tove! Let pass!” he shrieked: “Fiends are ye all, 
with whom to breathe is poison! ’ ’ and he broke by them, and 
went flying and crying up into the daylight. He ran, with- 
out pause, by the walls, down the notched stairway, across 
the ward, and came with flaming color into the buttery. 

“ Give me wine and bread! ” he screamed of the steward 
there; and the man, in a flurry of wonder, obeyed him. 
Then away he raced again, his hands full, and never stopped 
until the sentry, a new one, at the tower door barred his pro- 
gress. The way was private, quoth the man. He could let 
none past but by order. 

“ Of whom ? ” panted Bembo. 

“ Why, the Provost- Marshal.” 

Then the boy tried wheedling. 

“Dear soldier: thou are well cared for. There is one 
within perishes for a little bread.” 

But the man was adamant. 

“ Where, then, is the Provost-Marshal? ” cried the other 
in desperation. 

Within or without — the sentry professed not to know. In 
any case, it was death to him to leave his post. 

Bernardo put down his load on the battlements, and, 
turning, fled away again. 


CHAPTER X 


B ona sat amongst her maidens. They were all busy as 
spiders upon a loom of tapestry, spinning a symbolic 
web. The subject was as edifying as their talk over it was 
free. Their lips and fingers were perpetually at odds, weav- 
ing reputations and pulling them to pieces. Bona herself 
said little; but abstraction gave some indulgence to the smile 
with which she listened, or seemed to. 

“ Whither do her thoughts travel?” whispered one girl 
of another. 

“ Hush! ” was the answer. “Along the Piedmont Road 
with her lord, of course. What else would you ? ” 

The first giggled. 

“ Nothing, indeed, if it left a chance for poor little me. 
But, alack! I fear her charity stops nearer home.” 

“What, then, insignificance? Would your presumption 
fly at an angel ? ’ ’ 

“ Yes, indeed, though it got a peck for its pains. (Mark 
the Caprona’s ear pricked our way! She knows we are on 
the eternal subject.) Heigho! it will be something to share 
in this promised Commonwealth of love, at least.” 

She spoke loud enough for the little Catherine Sforza, sit- 
ting by her adopted mother, to hear her. 

“ Khi, Carlina,” cried that pert youngster: “ What share 
do you expect for your small part ? ” 

“ I thought of Messer Bembo, Madonna,” answered Car- 
lina demurely. 

They crowed her down with enormous laughter, 

117 


ii8 


BEMBO 


“ Nay,^hild,” said Catherine: “ there is to be no talk of 
exclusiveness in this Commonwealth. We are all to take 
alike — Mamma, and I, and the Countess of Casa Caprona, 
and whoever else subscribes to the Purification. For my 
part I shall be content with becoming very good; and I have 
hopes of myself. See the reformation in our dear Countess; 
and she was in his company but a day or two.” 

” Peace, thou naughtiness! ” cried Bona; while Beatrice’s 
eyes burned dull fire; and a girl, one who worked near her, 
a soft and endearing little piety, looked up and choked in a 
panic, “ O, Madonna! ” 

Catherine mimicked her: 

“ O, Biasia! Is the subject too tender for thy conscience? 
Alas, dear! but if thy only hope is in this Commonwealth ? 
Angels are not monogamous.” 

Biasia blushed like a poppy; yet managed to stammer 
amidst the laughter: ” It is only that he, — that the subject, 
seems to me too sacred. He preaches heavenly love — the 
brotherhood of souls — in all else, one man one maid.” 

Catherine very gravely got upon a stool, and paraphrased 
Messer Bembo, voice and manner: 

” I kiss thee, kind Madonna, for thine exposition. A 
man must put a fence about his desires, would he be happy. 
A sweet mate, a cot, beehives and a garden — he shall find 
all love’s epitome in these. None can possess the world but 
in the abstract — a plea for universal brotherhood. What 
doth it profit me to own a palace, and live for all my needs, 
content in one room of it? Go to and join, and leave super- 
fluous woman to the preacher.” 

Some tittered, some applauded; Biasia hung her head, and 
would say no more. Bona cried, “ Come down, thou 
wickedness! ” but indulgently, as if she half-dreaded attract- 
ing to herself the flicker of the little forked tongue. 

“ O! ” cried Catherine, ” I grant you that, with an angel, 
the manner spices the lesson. I will tell you, girls, how he 


A TALE OF ITALY 


119 

rebuked me yesterday on this same legend of reciprocity. 

‘ How could you take sport,’ says he, ‘ of witnessing that 
poor Montano’s punishment?’ ‘Why, very well,’ says I, 

‘ seeing he was a man, and therefore my natural enem5\’ 

‘ How is man so ? ’ says he. ‘ He makes me bear his children 
for him,’ says I. ‘ But I suppose he will be made to suffer 
his share of the toil in this new Commonwealth of love.’ 

‘ You talk like a child,’ he says. ‘ Then,’ says I, ‘ I will 
sing like a woman,’ and I extemporized — very clever, you 
will admit.” 

She pinched up her skirts, and put out a little foot, and 
chirruped, in no voice at all, but with a sauce of impudence: 

“ ‘ Love is give and take,* 
says he, 

* Every gander knows — 

Wear the prickle for my sake ; 

For thine, I ’ll wear the rose.’ 

“ ‘ Grazie, kind and true,’ 
says I, 

* For that noble dower — 

Only, between me and you, 

/should like the flower.’ ” 

‘And hast thou not it ? ’ cries St. Bernardo, interrupting me, 
and, would you believe it, swinging round his lute, his lips 
and his finger-tips join issue in the prettiest nonsense ever 
conceived for a poor wife’s fooling. Wait, and I will recall 
it.” 

She had the quickest wit and memory, and in a moment 
was chanting: 

“ ‘ Whence did our bird-soft baby come ? 

How learned to prattle of this for home ? 

“ ‘ Some sleepy nurse-angel let her stray. 

And she found herself in the world one day. 


120 


BEMBO 


“ ‘ She heard nurse calling, and further fled : 

She hid herself in our cabbage bed. 

* There we came on her fast asleep, 

What could we do but take and keep, 

** ‘ Carry her in and up the stair ? 

She would have died of cold out there. 

** * She woke at once in a little fright ; 

But Love beckoned her from the light. 

“ ‘ Lure we had lit, for dear love fain ; 

She had seen it shine through the window pane. 

** ‘ Lure we had kindled of flame and bliss, 

To catch such a little ghost-moth as this. 

“ ‘ Ah, me ! it shrivelled her pretty wing. 

Here she must stay, poor thing, poor thing ! * 

She ended: “ Faith, St. Charming’s lips make that dain- 
tiest setting to his fancies, that I could have kissed ’em while 
he improved his song with a homily ’ ’ (she mimicked again 
the boy’s manner, comically emphasized). ‘ Why,’ saith 
he, ‘ would you grudge yourself that poignant privilege of 
your sex ? would ye share the agony and halve the gain ? 
What gift so careless in all the world makes such sweet pos- 
session ? Furs, gowns, and trinkets pall; perishable things 
grow less by use; the diamond suffers by its larger peer. 
Only the gift of love, the wee babe, takes new delight of 
time; renews woman’s best through herself; is a perpetual 
novelty, spring all the year round, flowers fresh bourgeoning 
through faded blooms. To be sole warden of the quickening 
soul ye bore — you, you! to see the lamb-like heaven of its 
eyes cuddling to your bosom’s fold — all thine, save the spent 
heat that cast it! O, rather be the mould than the turbulent 
metal it shapes! Go to, and thank God for labors yielding 
such reward. Go to, and be the mother of saints.’ Whereat 


A TALE OF ITALY 


I2I 


I curtsied, and ‘ Thank you, sir,’ says I, ‘for the offer, but 
my bed ’s already laid for me in Rome,’ and then ” 

What more she might have quoted or invented none might 
say, for at the moment a wild figure burst into the chamber, 
and ran to its mistress, and entreated her with lips and hands. 

“ Give me thy gage — quick! There is one starves in the 
‘ Hermit’s Cell,’ and they will not let me pass to him with- 
out. Thou art the Duke, thou art the Duke now. Give it 
me, in mercy, and avert God’s vengeance from this wicked 
house! ” 

Bona had arisen, pale as death, pity and anguish pleading 
in her eyes. 

“ Alas! What sayst thou? Thou, not I, art the Duke.” 

“ Give it me,” demanded Bembo feverishly. “ Nay, 
quibble not, while he gasps out his agony — a monk — hear’st 
thou? A monk!” 

She temporized a moment in her pain. 

‘ ‘ There are black sheep in those flocks. ’ ’ 

“ God forgive thee! ” 

“Alas! thou wilt not. Indeed I have no talisman will 
open doors that my lord has shut.” 

Beatrice, intent, with veiled eyes, from her place, bestirred 
herself with an insolent smile. 

“ Madonna forgets. Love laughs at locksmiths.” 

The two women faced one another a minute. Some subtle 
emotion of antagonism, already born, waxed into a larger 
consciousness between them. 

“ How, Countess?” said Bona quietly. 

“ Madonna wears her betrothal ring — a very passe-partout. 
It is the talisman will serve her with monks and saints alike.” 

A little flush mantled to the Duchess’s brow. Standing 
erect a moment she slipped the ring from her finger, and 
held it out to Bernardo. 

“ It should be the pledge through love of Charity. Take 
it, in my lord’s good name, whose jealous representative I 


122 


BEMBO 


remain. And when thou return’s! it, may it be sanctified 
of new j ustice, child, against the prick of envy and slander 
and the spite of venomous tongues.” 

She turned away stately and resumed her needle as Ber- 
nardo, with a cry of thanks, ran from the room. A minute 
or two later he appeared before the sentry on the ramparts 
and flourished his token. To his surprise the man hardly 
glanced at it as he stepped aside to let him pass. He 
thought on this with some shapeless foreboding, as he leapt 
like a chamois down the steeps of the tower, the food, which 
he had snatched up, in his hands. God pity him and his 
awakening! There are emotions too sacred for minuting. 
Let it suffice that Jacopo had proved too faithful a prophy- 
lactic to superstition. The wretched monk had not been 
allowed to justify his own prediction by dying of starvation. 
In that last interval, between the Parablist’s going and 
coming, his throat had been cut. 

A minute later Bernardo leapt like a madman from the 
tower. His face was ashy, his hands trembling. At the 
foot of the curtain he stumbled over a poor patch, prostrate 
and moaning. 

I am thy Fool^ and I shall never make thee senile again F 

All quivering and unstrung, he threw himself on his knees 
by Cicada’s side. 

“ Up!” he screamed, “ up! Get you out of this Sodom 
ere the Lord destroy it! ” 

The Fool bestirred himself, raising eyes full of a sombre, 
eager questioning. 

“ I am forgiven?” he gasped; but Bernardo only cried 
frenziedly, “Up! up!” 


CHAPTER XI 


T here was consternation in the castello, for its angel 
visitant had disappeared. The evening following 
upon the episode of the ring saw his quarters void of him, 
his household retinue troubled and anxious, and some others 
in the palace at least as perturbed. It was not alone that 
the individual sense of stewardship towards so rare a posses- 
sion filled each and all with forebodings as to the penalty- 
likely to be exacted should Galeazzo return to a knowledge 
of his loss; the loss itself of so sweet and cleansing a per- 
sonality was blighting. Now, for the first time, perhaps, 
people recognized the real political significance of that creed 
which they had been inclined hitherto merely to pet and 
humor as the whimsey of a very engaging little propagan- 
dist. How sweet and expansive it was! how progressive 
by the right blossoming road of freedom! Where was their 
silver-tongued guide ? And they flew and buzzed, agitated 
like a bee-swarm that has lost its queen. 

But, while they scurried aimless, a rumor of the truth rose 
like a foul emanation, and, circulating among them, dark- 
ened men’s brows and drove women to a whispering gossip 
of terror. So yet another of the Duke’s inhumanities was 
at the root of this secession! By degrees the secret leaked 
out — of that living entombment, of the boy’s interference, 
of his bloody forestalling by the executioner, of his flight, 
accompanied by his Fool, from the gates. And now he was 
gone, whither none knew; but of a certainty leaving the 
curse of his outraged suit on the house he had tried to woo 
from wickedness. 


123 


124 


BEMBO 


The story gained nothing in relief as it grew. Whispers 
of that free feminine bandying with their Parablist’s name, 
of Catherine’s childish mockery of a sacred sentiment, 
deepened the common gloom. It mattered nothing to the 
general opinion that this little vivacious Sforza had but 
echoed its own bantering mood. Every popular joke that 
spells disaster must have its scapegoat. And she was not 
liked. In the absence of her father there were even ventur- 
ings of frowning looks her way, which, when she observed, 
the shrewd elfin creature did not forget. 

And Bernardo returned not that night, nor during all 
the following day was he heard of. Inquiries were set on 
foot, scouts unleashed, the sbirri warned: he remained un- 
discovered. 

Messer Carlo Eanti went about his business with a brow 
of thunder. Once, on the second day, traversing, dark in 
cogitation, a lonely corner of the castle enceinte, he came 
upon a figure which, as it were some apparition of his 
thoughts suddenly materialized, shocked him to a stand. 
The walls in this place met in a sunless, abysmal wedge; 
and, gathered into the hollow between, the waters of the 
canal, welling through subterranean conduits, made a deep 
head for the moat. And here, gazing down at her reflec- 
tion, it seemed, in that black stone-framed mirror, stood 
Beatrice. 

She was plainly conscious, for all her deep abstraction of 
the moment before, of his approach, yet neither spoke nor 
so much as turned her head as he came and stood beside her. 
It must have been some startle more than human that had 
found her nerves responsive to its shock. Her languor and 
indolence seemed impregnable, insensate, revealing no token 
of the passion within. Tike the warm, rich pastures which 
sleep over swelling fires, the placid glow of her cheek and 
bosom appeared never so fruitful in desire as when most 
threatening an outburst. Carlo, for all his rage of suspicion, 


A TALE OF ITALY 


125 


could not but be conscious of that appeal to his senses. He 
frowned, and shifted, and grunted, while she stood tranquilly 
facing him and fanning herself without a word. At length 
he broke silence: 

“ I had wished to see thee alone ” — he stared fixedly and 
significantly at the water, struggling to bully himself into 
brutality — “ Nay, by God and St. Ambrose,” he burst out, 
“ I believe we are well met in this place! ” 

Not a tremor shook her. 

‘‘Alone?” she murmured sleepily. “Why not? there 
was not used to be this ceremony between us.” 

“ I have done with all that,” he cried fiercely. “ I see 
thee now — myself, at least, in the true light. Harlot! 
wouldst have turned my hand against the angel that revealed 
thee! Where is he? Hast struck surer the second time ? I 
know thee — and if ” 

He seized her wrist, and turned her to the water. She 
did not resist or cry out, though her cheek flushed in the 
pain of his cruel clutch. 

“Know me!” she said. “Didst thou ever know me? 
Only as the bull knows the soft heifer — the nearest to his 
needs. Thou hast done with me — thou ! I tell thee, if Fate 
had made a sacrament of thy passion, yielding the visible 
sign, I had brought hither the monstrous pledge and drowned 
it like a dog. Do we so treat what we love ? I am not guilty 
of Bernardo’s death, if that is what you mean.” 

He let her go, and retreated a step, glaring at her. Her 
blood ebbed and flowed as tranquilly as her low voice had 
stabbed. 

“This — to my face!” he gasped. Then he broke into 
furious laughter. “Art well requited, if it is the truth. 
Love him! But, dead or alive, he will not love thee— that 
saint — a wife dishonored.” 

“ O noble bull— thou king of beasts! ” she murmured. 

“Why should I be generous?” he snarled. “Have I 


126 


BEMBO 


reason to spare thee ? Yet I will be generous, an thou art 
guiltless of this, Beatrice. I have loved thee, after my 
fashion.” 

‘ ‘ Thou hast. Ah ! If I might sponge away that 
memory ! ’ ’ 

“ Well, I would fain do the same for his sake.” 

“Dog!” 

“What!” 

‘ ‘ Barest thou talk of love ? — thou, who hast rolled me 
in thine arms, and waked from sated ecstasy to call me 
murderess! ” 

“ Had I not provocation, then ? Faith, you bewilder me! ” 

“ Poor, stupid brute! ” 

“Stupid I may be, yet not so blind as woman’s folly. 
Hast borne me once, Beatrice. Well, it is past: I ask 
nothing of it but thy trust. ’ ’ 

My trust 

“Ay, when I warn thee. This saint is not for thee. O, 
I am wide awake! Stupid? like enough; but when a wife, 
the queenliest, parts with her betrothal ring ’ ’ 

She made a quick, involuntary gesture, stepping forward; 
then as suddenly checked herself, with a soft, mocking laugh. 

“ O this bull! ” she cried huskily — “ this precisian of the 
new cult! Not for me, quotha, but for another — a saint to 
all but the highest bidder! ” 

“ Not for you or any one,” he said savagely. 

“What! not Bona either?” she said. “Be warned by 
me, rather. Yours is no wit for this encounter. Love is a 
coil, dear chuck; no battering-ram. Not for me or any? 
Maybe; but the game is in the strife. Go, find your saint: 
I know nothing of him.” 

“ No, nor shall. Be warned, I say.” 

“ Well, you have said it, and more than once.” 

He hesitated, ground his teeth, clapped his hands to- 
gether, and turning, left her. 


A TALE OF ITALY 


127 


Glooming and mumbling, he went back to the palace. A 
page met him with the message that the Duchess of Milan 
desired his attendance. He frowned, and went, as directed, 
to her private closet. He found Bona alone, busy, or affect- 
ing to be busy, over a strip of embroidery. She greeted 
him chilly; but it was evident that nervousness rather than 
hauteur kept her seated. He saluted her coldly and si- 
lently, awaiting her pleasure. She glanced once or twice 
at the closed portiere; then braced herself to the ordeal with 
a rather quivering smile. 

“ This is a sad coil, Messer Carlo.” 

He answered gruffly: 

“ If I understand your Grace.” 

She put the quibble by. 

‘‘We, you and I, are in a manner his guardians — account- 
able to the Duke.” 

‘‘ I can understand your Grace’s anxiety,” he said shortly. 

‘‘ Nevertheless, it was not I introduced him to the court,” 
she said. 

‘ ‘ But only to some of its secrets, ’ ’ he responded. 

‘‘ I do not understand you.” 

‘‘It is very plain. Madonna. You gave him the key to 
that discovery.” 

She rose at once, breathing quickly, her cheeks white. 

‘‘Ah, Messer! in heaven’s name procure me the return of 
my ring! ” 

Her voice was quite pitiful, entreating. He looked at her 
gloomily, gnawing his upper lip. 

‘ ‘ Madonna commands ? I will do my best to find and 
take it from him, alive or dead.” 

She fell back with a little crying gasp. 

‘‘ Find him — yes.” 

“ No more?” he demanded grimly. 

*‘ I thought you loved him ? ” she gulped. 

‘‘ Too well,” he answered, ‘‘ to be your go-between.” 


128 


BEMBO 


She uttered a fierce exclamation, and clenched her hands. 

“ Go, sir! ” she said. 

He turned at once. She came after him, fawning. 

“ Good Messer Carlo, dear lord,” she breathed weepingly; 
“ nay, thou art a loyal and honest friend. Forgive me. 
We are all in need of forgiveness.” 

He faced about again. 

“ Penitence is blasphemy without reform,” he said. 

“Ah me! it is. How well thou hast caught the sweet 
preacher’s style. Hast thou reformed ? ” 

“Ay, in the worst.” 

“Thou hast made an enemy of thy mistress? Poor 
Bembo, poor child! He will need a mother.” 

“ Wouldst thou be that to him ? ” 

“ What else ? Get me my ring.” 

“ Beatrice hates him ” 

“ She would, the wretch, for his parting you and her.” 

“ Or loves him — I don’t know which.” 

“ Wanton! how dare she ? ” 

“ Well, if you will play the mother to him ” 

“ Is he not a child to adore ? Ah me! to be foster-parent 
to that boon-comrade of the Christ! ” 

Carlo looked at her with some satisfaction darkling out 
of gloom. His honest hot brain was no Machiavellian pos- 
session; his temper was the travail of a warm heart. He 
believed this woman meant honestly; and so, no doubt, she 
did in her loss, not considering, or choosing not to consider, 
the emotionalism of regain. 

“Ay, Madonna,” said he, kindling, “ ’t is the most covet- 
able relation. Who but Potiphar’s wife would associate 
what we call love with this Joseph? God! a look of him 
will make me blush as I were a brat caught stealing sugar. 
There is that in him, we blurt out the truth in the very act 
of hiding it. A child to adore ? Is he not, now, the dear 
put ? and to hearken to and imitate what we can. Ay, and 


A TALE OF ITALY 


129 


more — to shield with this arm — let men beware. Only the 
women harass me, this way and that. Their loves and 
hates be like twin babes. None but their dam can tell each 
from the other. Therefore, would ye mother him — ” 

“ Yes—” 

“And cherish and protect — ” 

“ Yes—” 

“And of your woman’s wisdom keep skirts at a distance — ” 

“ I will promise that most.” 

“Why, I will bring him back to thee, ring and all, 
though I turn Milan upside down first.” 

He bowed and was going; but she detained him, with 
sycophant velvet eyes. 

“ Dear lord, so kind and loyal. Tell him that without 
him we find ourselves astray.” 

“Ay.” 

“ Tell him that from this moment his Duchess will aid and 
abet him in all his reforms. ’ ’ 

“ I will tell him.” 

“ Ask him — ” she hesitated, and turned away her sweet 
head — “ doth he seek to retaliate on his mistress’s innocent 
confidence, that, by absenting himself, he would turn it to 
her undoing ? ” 

Carlo grunted. 

“ By your Grace’s leave, an I find him, I will put it my 
way.” 

She acquiesced with a meek, lovely smile, and the words 
of the Mass: “//<?, mzssa est ! ” 

And when he was gone, she sighed, and looked in a mirror 
and murmured to herself in a semi-comedy of grief: “Alas! 
too weak to be Messalina! I must be good if he asks me.” 

And, being weak, she let her thoughts drift. 

9 


CHAPTER XII 


I N a street of the quarter Giovia the armorer Lupo had 
his smithy. He had been a notable artisan in a town 
famous for its steel and niello work; but in his age, as in 
any, a plethora of fine production must cheapen the value 
of the individual producer. Therefore when a vengeful 
caprice blinded him, and his door remained shut and his 
chimney ceased to smoke, patronage transferred its custom 
to the next house or street without a qualm; and his 
achievements in his particular business were forgotten, or 
confounded with those of fellow-craftsmen, deriving, per- 
haps, in their art from him. It was a sample of that banal 
heartlessness of society, which in a moral age breeds collec- 
tivists, and desperadoes in an age of lawlessness. And of 
the two one may pronounce the latter the more logical. 

In Milan men came quickly to maturity, whether in the 
art of forging a blade or using it. Eife flamed up and out 
on swift ideals of passion. Parental love, high education, 
the intricate cults of beauty and chivalry, were all gambling 
investments in a speculative market. The odds were always 
in favor of that old broker Death. Yet the knowledge 
abated nothing of the zeal. It was strange to be so fastidious 
of the terms of so hazardous a lease. One might be saving, 
just, virtuous — one’s life- tenancy was not made thereby a 
whit securer. The ten commandments lay at the mercy of a 
dagger-point; wherefore men hurried to realize themselves 
timely, and to cram the stores of years into a rich banquet 
or two. 


130 


A TALE OF ITALY 


131 

Master Lupo, a sincere workman and a conscientious, was 
flicked in one moment ofi" his green leaf into the dust. 
There, maimed and helpless, the tears forever welling in his 
empty sockets, he cogitated tremulously, fiercely, the one 
sentiment left to him, revenge — revenge not so primarily on 
the instrument of his ruin, as on Tassino through the sys- 
tem which had made such a creature possible. He lent his 
darkened abode to be the nest to one of those conspiracies, 
which are never far to gather in despotic governments, 
and which opportunity in his case showed him actually at 
hand. 

Cola Montano, it has been said, had been borne away 
after his scourging by some women of the people. Grace, 
or pity, or fear was in their hearts, and they nursed him. 
Scarcely for his own sake; for, democracy being imper- 
sonal, he was at no trouble to be a grateful patient. He 
took their ministries as conceded to a principle, and indi- 
vidually was as surly and impatient with them as any ill- 
conditioned cur. 

Recovering betimes (the dog had a tough hide), he 
learned of neighbor Lupo’s condition, and walked incon- 
tinently into that wretched artificer’s existence. He found 
a blind and hopeless wreck, shelves of rusting armor, a forge 
of dead embers, and, brooding sullen beside it, a girl too 
plainly witnessing to her own dishonor. He heard the rain 
on the roof; he saw the set gray mother creeping about her 
work; and he sat himself down by the sightless armorer, and 
peered hungrily into his swathed face. 

“ Dost know me, Lupo? I am Montano.” 

The miserable man groaned. 

‘ ‘ Master Collegian ? Stands yet thy school of philosophy ? 
A’ God’s name, lay something of that on this hot bandage! ” 

“The school stands in its old place, armorer; but its doors, 
like thine, are shut. What then? Its principles remain 
open to all.” 


132 


BEMBO 


The poor wretch put out a hand, feeling. 

‘ ‘ Where art thou ? Have thy wounds healed so quickly ? 
Mine are incurable.” 

“ What! ” croaked Montano jeeringly, “ with such a salve 
to allay them! I heard of it — logic meet to an angel — to 
renew thine image through her yonder. Marry, sir! con- 
ception runs before the law. Hast chased thy likeness down 
and taken it to church ? Mistress Lucia there would seem 
a sullen bride. Hath her popinjay come and gone again? 
Well, you must be content with the legitimizing.” 

The armorer writhed in answering. 

“ What think you ? There has been none. Mock not our 
misery. Is it the concern of angels to see their sentences 
enforced?” 

“No, but to be called angels. Heaven is not easy sur- 
feited with adulation.” 

“ He was glorified in his judgment; and there, for us, the 
matter ended.” 

“Not quite.” 

The pedagogue bent his evil head to look again into that 
woful face. 

“ Lupo, my school is closed; alumnus loiters in the 
streets. Shall he come in here ? ” 

There was something so significant in his tone that the 
broken man he addressed started, as if a hand had been laid 
on his eyes. 

“ For what ? Who is he ? ” he muttered. 

“ I will tell you anon,” answered Montano. “No prelec- 
tor but hath his favorite pupils. He, alumnus, is in this 
case threefold — three dear homeless scholars of mine, Lupo, 
needing a rallying-place in which to meet and mature some 
long-discussed theory of social cure. I have heard from 
them since — since my illness. They chafe to resume their 
studies and their mentor — honest, good fellows, confessing,^ 
perhaps, to a heresy or so.” 


A TALE OF ITALY 


133 

“ Master,” muttered the armorer, “ you will do no harm 
to be explicit.” 

“Shall I not? Well, if you will, and by grace of an 
example, such a heresy, say, as that, when the devil rules 
by divine right, the God who nominated him is best 
deposed.” 

“Yes, yes, to be sure. That is blasphemy as well as 
heresy. But I think of Messer Bembo, who is still His 
minister, and I believe your pupils go too far.” 

“ Why, what hath this minister done for you ? ” 

“ Very much, in intention.” 

“ Well, I thought that was said to pave the other place; 
but, in truth, the issues of all things are confounded, since 
we have an angel for the Lord’s minister and a devil for His 
vicegerent.” 

‘ ‘ Pity of God! are they not ? And ye would resolve them 
by deposing the Christ — ^by knocking out the very keystone 
of hope ? ’ ’ 

“ Nay, by substituting a rock for a crumbling brick.” 

“What rock?” 

“ The people.” 

“ Might they not, too, elect a tyrant to be their represent- 
ative ? ’ ’ 

“ How could tyranny represent a commonwealth ? ” 

“A commonwealth! It is out, then! It is not God ye 
would depose, but Galeazzo. Commonwealth! Is that a 
name for keeping all men under a certain height ? But the 
giant will dictate the standard, and any one may reach to 
him who can. Messer Montano, I seem to have heard of a 
republican called Caesar.” 

“ Then you must have heard of another called Brutus? ” 

“Ay, to be sure; and of a third called Octavian.” 

“ Those were distracted times, my friend.” 

“And what are these ? Have you ever heard of the times 
when a man’ s interest was one with his neighbor’ s ? Besides, 


134 


BEMBO 


the flame of art burns never so sprightly as under a despot. 
It finds no fuel in uniformity — each man equal to his neigh- 
bor.” He put out groping hands pitifully. ” I loved my 
art,” he quavered. “ They might have spared me to it! ” 

Montano bit his lip scornfully. It was on his tongue to 
spurn this spiritless creature. But he suppressed himself. 
“What would you, then?” he demanded; “you, the 
wretched victim of the system you commend? ” 

“Ah!” sighed Lupo, “ideally, Messer, an autocracy, 
with an angel at its head. ’ ’ 

The philosopher laughed harshly. 

“ Why,” he sneered, “ there is your ideal come to hand. 
Be plain. Shall we depose a tyrant, and elect in his place 
this new-arrived, this divine boy, as ye all title him? ” 

“Why not?” 

Montano started and stared at the speaker. There was 
suggestion here — of a standard for innovation; of a rallying- 
point for reform. A republic, like a despotism, might find 
its telling battle-cry in a saint. The boy, as representing 
the liberty of conscience, was already a subject of popular 
adoration. Why should they not use him as a fulcrum to 
the lever of revolution, and, having done with, return him 
to the cloisters from which he drew ? There was suggestion 
here. He mused a little, then broke out suddenly : 

“ Brutus is none the less indispensable.” 

“ I do not gainsay it, master.” 

“ What! you do not ? Then there, at least, we are agreed. 
Wilt have him come here? ” 

‘ ‘ Who is he, this Brutus ? I grope in the dark — O my 
God, in the dark! ” 

During all this time the two women had remained passive 
and apparently apathetic listeners. Now, suddenly, the girl 
rose from her place by the chimney and came heavily for- 
ward, her eyes glaring, her hands clenched in woe, like some 
incarnated, fallen pythoness. 


A TALE OF ITALY 


135 


“ Tell she said hoarsely. “ I haven’t his patience 
for my wrongs, nor caution neither. What ’s gained by 
caution when one stands on an earthquake ? Let me make 
sure of hiniy my fine lover, and the world may fall in, for all 
I care.” 

The pale mother hurried to her husband’s side. He 
put out helpless, irresolute hands, with a groan. Montano 
stooping, elbow on knee, and rubbing his bristly chin, 
conned the speaker with sinister approval. 

“ Spoken like a Roman,” said he. “ Thou art the better 
vessel. If all were as you! Tyranny is hatched of the gross 
corpse of manliness — a beastly fly. Will tell thee my 
Brutus’s name, girl, if thou wilt answer for these.” 

He pointed peremptorily at her parents. 

“Ay, will I,” she answered scornfully; “though I have 
to wrench out their tongues first.” 

He applauded shrilly, with a triumphant, contemptuous 
glance at the cowering couple. 

“ That is the right way with cowards. I commit my 
Brutus to thee. ’T is a threefold dog, as I have said — a 
fanged Cerberus. Noble, too — as Roman as thou; and, in 
one part at least, like wounded. He, this third part, this 
Carlo Visconti, had a sister. Well, she was a flower which 
Galeazzo plucked; and, not content therewith, threw into 
the common road. Another head is Lampugnani, beggared 
by the Sforzas; and Girolamo Olgiati is my third, a dear 
beardless boy, and instigated only by the noblest love of 
liberty.” 

The girl nodded. 

“And are these all ? ” 

“All, save a fellow called Narcisso — a mere instrument to 
use and break — no principles but hate and gain. Was serv- 
ant to that bully Lanti and dismissed — hum! for excess of 
loyalty. Fear him not.” 

“Alas! ” broke in the armorer: “ why should we fear him 


136 


BEMBO 


or anybody ? There is no harm in this letting my shop to 
be thy school’s succedaneum.” 

Lucia laughed like a fury. 

“No harm at all,” sniggered Montano, “save in these 
heresies I spoke of. And what are they? — to reorganize 
society on a basis of political and social freedom. No harm 
in these young Catilines discussing their drastic remedies, 
perhaps in the vanity of a hope that some Sallust may be 
found to record them.” 

“Nay, have done with all this,” cried the girl wither- 
ingly. “ I know nothing of your Catilines and Sallusts. 
Ye meet to kill — own it, or ye meet elsewhere.” 

Her mother cried out: “ O Lucia! per pieta.” 

She made no answer, only fixing Montano with her glit- 
tering eyes. He rose from his stool stiffly, with a snarl for 
his aching wounds. But his face brightened towards her 
like a spark of wintry sun. 

“ We meet to kill, Madonna,” he said, “ ruined, crippled, 
debauched — the victims of a monster and his system. And 
thou shalt have thy share, never fear, when the feast comes 
to follow the sacrifice.” 

Bembo had fled, like one distracted, from the walls, his 
faithful shadow jumping in his wake. The two, running 
and following, never slackened in their pace until a half- 
mile separated them from the city; and then, in a gloomy 
thicket, under a falling sky, the boy threw himself down 
on the grass, and buried his face from heaven. Pitiful and 
distraught, the Fool stood over, silently regarding him. At 
length he spoke, panting and reproachful. 

“ Nay, in pity, master, wert thou not advised? ” 

The boy writhed. 

“ So lying, so wicked cunning, to make me his decoy and 
seeming abettor! O, I am punished for my faith! Is Christ 
dead?” 


A TALE OF ITALY 


137 


The Fool sighed. 

“ By thy showing, He lingers behind in the wood.” 

“ Tell him I have gone on to my father.” 

“Thou wilt?” 

Bernardo sat up, a towzled angel. In the interval the 
tears had come fast, and his face was wet. 

“ God help you all! ” he sobbed. “You, even you, pre- 
varicated to me. Whither shall I turn ? I see everywhere 
a death-dealing wilderness, lies and lust and inhumanity. ’ ’ 

“ I prevaricated,” said Cicada mournfully. “ I admit it. 
You once claimed my wit and experience to your tutoring. 
Well, do I not know the tyrant — the persistent devil in him ? 
He had his teeth in that monk. Not Christ Himself would 
have loosened them.” 

“ Ah! what shall I do ? ” 

“ What, but go forward steadfast. This is but a jog by 
the way. Judge life on the broad lines of action, the ruts 
which mark the progress of the wheels. ’T is a morbid 
sentiment that wastes itself on the quarrel between the 
wheels and the road.” 

“Ah, me! if I could but foresee the end of that bloody 
mire — the sweet, crisp path again! I can advance no 
further. My weak heart fails. I will go back to the 
wood.” 

“ Then back, a’ God’s name, so I come too.” 

Bernardo rose and seized the Fool’s hand, the tears 
streaming down his cheeks. 

“ This dreadful race — monsters all! ” he cried. “ Is there 
one kind deed recorded to its credit — one, one only, one 
little deed ? Tell me, and if there is, by its memory I will 
persevere.” 

“ Humph! Should I wish thee to ? Think again of that 
wood.” 

“ Tell me, kind, good Cicca, my nurse and friend.” 

“ Go to! Shalt not put a bone in my throat. Well, they 


138 


BEMBO 


are monsters, but made by that same brute Circumstance 
thou decriest. ‘ Wavering out of chaos,’ says you? Veiy^ 
like, sir; but, after all. Circumstance is our head artist in a 
tuneless world. What a dull singsong ’t would be without 
him — league-long choirs of saints praising God — a universe 
of chirping crickets! With respect, sir, I, though his Fool, 
would not have him caged in my time.” 

“Alas, dear, for thine understanding! Love, that I would 
have depose him, is ten thousand times his superior in art — 
ay, and in humor. But go on.” 

“ I doubt the humor. However, as things are, I owe 
to him, as do you, and Galeazzo — the Fool, the Saint, and 
the Monster. Could love conceive such a trio ? But to 
the point. Hast ever heard speak of our Duke’s grand- 
dad?” 

“ Muzio?” 

“ So he called himself, or was called, pretending to trace 
his descent from Mutius Scaevola, the Roman. Flattery, 
you see, will make a braying ass of honesty. He was 
Giacommuzzo — ^just that; one of a family of fighting yeo- 
men. But he had points. Hast been told how he began ? ” 

“ No.” 

“ Why, he was digging turnips by the evening star in his 
father’s farm at Cotignola, when the sound of pipes and 
drums disturbed him. ’T was some band of Boldrino of 
Panicale come to recruit from the fields; and they halted by 
the big man. “ Be a soldier of fortune like us,” says they; 
and he tossed his dusty hair from his eyes, and saw the glint 
of gold in baldricks. He looked at the evening star, and 
’t was pale beside. Borrowers glean the real heaven of 
credit in this topsy-turvy world. Look at any pool of water: 
what a glittering prospectus it makes of the moon ! Muzzo 
flung his spade into an oak hard by, leaving the decision to 
Circumstance. If it fell, he would resume it; if it stayed, a 
soldier he would be. It stuck in the branches.” 


A TALE OF ITALY 139 


“ Cicca! ” 

“ Peace! I will tell thee. He fought up and down, but 
never back to Cotignola. He put his ploughing shoulder to 
his work, and dug a furrow to fame. Popes and kings en- 
gaged for and against this Condottieri. He took them all 
to market like his beans. He knew the values of fear and 
money and discipline — bought over honor; wrenched treason 
by the joints; flogged slackness for a rusty hinge in its 
armor; made warriors of his rabble. Sought letters, too, to 
spur them on by legend.” 

“All this is nothing.” 

“ He went to Mass every day ” 

“Alas!” 

‘ ‘ Cast his true plain wife, and took to bed the widow of 
Naples ” 

“Alas! Alas!” 

“And lost his life at Pescara, trying to save another.” 

“Ah ! How was that ? ’ ’ 

‘ ‘ He had crossed the river on a blown tide, when he saw 
his page a-drowning in the stream. “ Poor lad,” quoth he, 
“ will none help thee?” And he dashed back, was over- 
whelmed himself, and sank. They saw his mailed hands 
twice rise and clutch the air. A’ was never seen again. 
The waters were his tomb.” 

Bernardo was silent. 

“ Was not that a creditable deed? ” quoth the Fool. 

The boy, pressing the tangled hair from his eyes, fever- 
ishly seized his comrade’s hands in his own. 

“ God forgive me! ” he cried; “ am I one to judge him, 
who have let my father’s friend go under, and never reached 
a hand?” 

The Fool looked frankly amazed. 

“ Montano,” cried Bembo, “ whom, in my pride of place, 
I have forgotten! I will go down among the people where 
he lies, and seek to heal his wounds, and sing Christ’s 


140 


BEMBO 


parables to simple hearts. I^ove lies not in palaces. I will 
seek Montano.*’ 

“ Come, then,” said Cicada. 

“ Nay, in a little,” said the boy. ” I^et the kind night 
find us first. I will flaunt my creed no longer in the 
sun.” 

From behind the barred door of Eupo’s shop came the 
sound of muffled laughter. The tragic incongruity of it in 
that house of ruin was at least arresting enough to halt a 
pedestrian here and there on his passage along the dark, 
wet-blown street outside. The mirth broke gustily, with 
little snarls at intervals, bestial and worrying; hearing 
which, the lingerer would perhaps hurry on his way with a 
shudder, crossing himself against, or spitting out like a bad 
odor, the influence of the fiend who had evidently got hold 
of the master armorer. Libera nos ci malo! 

The fiend, in fact, in possession was no other than Messer 
Montano’s Cerberus, and its orgy, had the listener known 
it, had more than justified his apprehensions. The mirth 
which terrified his heart was perhaps even a degree more 
deadly in its evocation than anything he could imagine. It 
was really laughter so dreadful that, had he guessed its im- 
port, he had rushed, in an agony of self- vindication, to sum- 
mon the watch. But guessing nothing, unless it might be 
Tupo’s madness under the shock of his misfortunes, he 
simply crossed himself and hurried away. 

Blood conspiracies are rarely successful. Perhaps a too 
scrupulous forethought against contingencies tends to clog 
the issues. If that is so, the recklessness of these men may, 
in a measure, have spelt their present security. A laugh, 
after all, is less open to suspicion than a whisper. Who 
could imagine a fatal thrust in a guffaw? Nevertheless, 
every chuckle uttered here punctuated a stab. 

In rehearsal only at present, it is true; but practice, good 


A TALE OF ITALY 


141 

practice, sirs. The victim of the attack was a dummy, 
contrived suggestively to represent Galeazzo. At least the 
habit made the man; and hate and a stinging imagination 
supplied the rest. 

It stood in a dusky corner by the dead forge. Not so 
much light as would certainly guide a hand was allowed to 
fall upon it; for deeds of darkness, to be successful, must be 
prepared against darkness. Its stuffed, daubed face, staring 
from out this gloom, was like nothing human. To catch 
sudden sight, within a vista of dim lamp-shine, of its motion- 
less eyes and features warped with stabs, was to gasp and 
shrink, as if one had looked into a glass and seen Death re- 
flected back. Its suggestion of reality (and it possessed it) 
was to seek rather in velvet and satin; in a cunning, familiar 
disposition of its dress; in the sombre but profuse sparkle of 
artificial gems with which it was looped and hung. Thence 
came a grotesque and wicked semblance to a doomed figure. 
For the rest, in the bloodless slashes, gaping, rag-exuding, 
which had taken it cunningly in weak places — through the 
neck, under the gorget, between joints of the mail with 
which Lupo’s craft had fitted it — there was a suggestiveness 
almost more horrible than truth. 

It was in actual fact a sop to Cerberus, was this grisly- 
ludicrous doll, fruit of the decision (which had followed 
much discussion of ways and means) to postpone its proto- 
type’s murder to some occasion of public festivity, when the 
sympathies of the mob might be kindled and a revolution 
accomplished at a stroke. Politic Cerberus must neverthe- 
less have something to stay the gnawing and craving of a 
delayed revenge which had otherwise corroded him. He 
took a ferociously boyish delight in fashioning this lay- 
figure, and, having made, in whetting his teeth on it; in 
clothing it in purple and fine linen; in addressing it wheed- 
lingly, or ironically, or brutally, as the mood swayed him. 
And to-night his mood, stung by the tempest, perhaps, was 


142 


BEMBO 


unearthly in its wildness. It rose in fiendish laughter; it 
mocked the anguish of the blast, a threefold litany, now 
blended, now a trifurcating blasphemy. There were the 
roaring bass of Visconti, Lampugnani’s smooth treble, the 
deadly considered baritone of Olgiati. And, punctuating 
all, like the tap of a baton, flew the interjections of Messer 
Montano, the conductor: 

“ Su! Gia-gia! Bravo, Carlo! That was a Brutus 
stroke! Uh-uh, Andrea! hast bled him there for arrears of 
wages! a scrap of gold-cloth, by Socrates! A brave sign, a 
bright token, Andrea! ” 

He chuckled and hugged himself, involuntarily embracing 
in the action the long pendant which hung from his roundlet 
or turban, and half-pulling the cap from his skull-like fore- 
head. 

“ Death! ” he screeched in an ecstasy, and Tampugnani, 
glancing at him, went off into husky laughter, and sank 
back, breathed, upon a bench. 

“ Cometh in a doctor’s gown,” he panted. ” Nay, sir, 
bonnet! bonnet! or the dummy will suspect you.” 

He might have, himself, and with a better advantage to 
his fortunes, could he have penetrated the vestments of that 
drear philosophic heart. There was a secret there would 
have astounded his self-assurance. Montano wore his doc- 
tor’s robe, meetly as a master of rhetoric, not the least of 
whose contemplated flights was one timely away from that 
political arena, whose gladiators in the meanwhile he was 
bent only on inflaming to a contest in which he had no in- 
tention of personally participating. He had a flxed idea, his 
back and his principles being still painfully at odds, that the 
cause would be best served by his absence, when once the 
long train to the explosion he was engineering had been 
fired at his hand. And so he hugged himself, and Tampug- 
nani laughed. 

“ L/Ook at Master Tupo, with the sound of thy screech in 


A TALE OF ITALY 


143 

his ears! As if he thought we contemplated anything but 
to bring slashed Venetian doubtlets into vogue!” 

He was a large, fleshly creature, was this Lampugnani, 
needing some fastidious lust to stir him to action, and then 
suddenly violent. His face was big and vealy, with a mouth 
in its midst like a rabbit’s, showing prominently a couple, 
no more, of sleek teeth. His eyes drooped under lids so 
languid as to give him an affectation of fatigue in lifting 
them. His voice was soft, but compelling: he never lent it 
to platitudes. An intellectual sybarite, a voluptuary by 
deliberation, he had tested God and Belial, and pronounced 
for the less Philistine lordship of the beast. Quite consistent 
with his principles, he not hated, but highly disapproved of 
Galeazzo, who, as consistently, had pardoned him some 
abominable crime which, under Francesco the father, had 
procured him the death sentence. But Messer Andrea had 
looked for a more sympathetic recognition of his merits at 
the hands of his deliverer than was implied in an ill-paid 
lieutenancy of Guards; and his exclusion from a share in the 
central flesh-pots was a conclusive proof to him of the 
aesthetic worthlessness of the master it was his humility to 
serve. 

The Visconti, at whom he breathed his little laugh, was a 
contrast to him in every way — a bluff, stout-built man, with 
fat red chaps flushing through a skin of red hair, a brag- 
gadocio manner, and small eyes red with daring. There 
was nothing of his house’s emblematic adder about him, 
save a readiness with poisons; and after all that gave him 
no particular distinction. He took a great, stertorous pull 
at a flagon of wine, and smacked his lips bullyingly, before 
he answered with a roar: 

“Wounds! scarlet scotched on a ground of flesh-tint — a 
fashion will please our saint.” 

Montano chuckled again, and more shrilly. 

“Good, good!” he cried: “scarlet on flesh!” and he 


144 


BEMBO 


squinted roguishly at the blind smith, who sat beside him 
on a bench, nervously kneading together his wasted hands. 

“ Messers,” muttered the poor fellow; “ but will this holy 
boy approve the means to such a fashion? For I^ove to 
exalt himself by blood! ” 

He turned his sightless eyes instinctively towards Olgiati, 
where the boy stood, a dark, fatalistic young figure, breath- 
ing himself by the forge. He, he guessed, or perhaps knew, 
was alone of the company actuated by impersonal motives 
in this dread conspiracy. But he did not guess that, by so 
much as the young man was a pure fanatic of liberty, his 
hand and purpose were the most of all to be dreaded. 

Olgiati gave a melancholy smile, and, stirring a little, 
looked down. He was habited, as were his two companions, 
for the occasion — a recurrent dress-rehearsal — in a coat and 
hose of mail, and a jerkin of crimson satin. It was not the 
least significant part of his undertaking that he, like the 
others, was court-bred and court-employed. The fact, at its 
smallest, implied in them a certain anatomic-cum-sartorial 
acquaintance with their present business. 

^^Offerimus tibi^ Domine^ Calicem salutaris ! he quoted 
from the Mass, in his sweet, strong voice. ‘ ‘ Hast thou not 
a first example of that exaltation, I^upo, in the oblation of 
the chalice ? ’ ’ 

Revolution knows no blasphemy. 

“ Bah! ” grumbled Visconti. 

“ He died for men: we worship the sacrifice of Himself,” 
protested the armorer. 

“And shall not Messer Bembo sacrifice himself, his 
scruples and his reluctances, that love may be exalted over 
hate, mercy over tyranny? ” asked Olgiati. 

“ I know not, Messer,” muttered the suffering armorer. 
“ I cannot trace the saint in these sophistries, that is all.” 

“ True, he is a saint,” conceded Tampugnani, yawning 
as he lolled. “Now, what is a saint, I^upo ? ” 


A TALE OF ITALY 


145 


“ O, Messer! look on his mother’s son, and ask! ” 

“ Why, that is the true squirrel’s round. We are all born 
of women ” — he yawned again. 

‘ ‘ They bear us, and we endure them, ’ ’ he murmured 
smilingly, the water in his eyes. “ It is so we retaliate on 
their officiousness.” 

Montano tittered. 

“Lupo,” Lampugnani went on, lazily stirring himself, 
“ you suggest to me two- thirds of a syllogism: / am my 
mother’s son; therefore I am a saint.” 

“ Ho! ho! ” hooted Visconti. 

“Messer,” entreated the bewildered armorer, “with re- 
spect, it turns upon the question of the mother.” 

“ The mother? O dog, to question the repute of mine! ” 

“ I did not — no, never.” 

“ Well, who was his ? ” 

“ None knows. A star, ’t is said.” 

“ Venus, of course. And his father ? ” 

“ Some son of God, perchance.” 

“ Ay, Mars. He was that twain’s by-blow, and fell upon 
an altar. I know now how saints are made. Yet shall we, 
coveting sanctity, wish our parents bawds ? ’T is a con- 
fusing world! ” 

He sank back as if exhausted, while Montano chirped, 
and Visconti roared with laughter. 

“Saints should be many in it, Andrea,” he applauded. 
“Knows how they are made, quotha!” and he stamped 
about, holding his sides till, reeling near to the dummy, he 
paused, and made a savage lunge at it with his dagger. 
His mood changed on the instant. 

“ Death! ” he snarled, “ I warrant here ’s one hath propa- 
gated some saints to his undoing! ” and he went muttering 
a rosary of curses under his breath. 

Lampugnani, smilingly languid, continued: 

“ Well, Lupo, so Messer Bembo is the son of his mother ? 

xo 


146 


BEMBO 


It seems like enough — what with his wheedling and his 
love-locks. He shall be Saint Cupid on promotion. I 
think he will regard scarlet or pink as no objectionable 
fashion, does it come to make a god of him.” 

The armorer uttered an exclamation: 

‘ ‘ Some think him that already. It is the question of his 
coming to be Duke that hips me. I can’t see him there.” 

“ Nor I,” said Visconti, with a sarcastic laugh. 

Olgiati interposed quietly: 

“ Have comfort, Lupo. We are all good republicans. 
The exaltation of Messer Bembo is to be provisional only, 
preceding the consummation. He is to be lifted like the 
Host, to bring the people to their knees, and then lowered, 
and ” 

“ Put away,” said Tampugnani blandly. 

The armorer started to his feet in agitation. 

“ Messers! ” he cried, “ he poured oil into my wounds; I 
will consent to no such wickedness.” 

“ You won’t ? ” roared Visconti; but Tampugnani soothed 
him down. 

“ When I said ‘ put away,’ I meant in a tabernacle, like 
that sacred bread. I assure you, Lupo, he is the rose of our 
adoration also; he shall cultivate his thorn in peace; he shall 
wax fat like Jeshurun, and kick.” 

“And in the meantime,” grumbled Visconti, “ we are 
measuring our fish before we ’ve hooked him.” 

Lampugnani’s face took on a very odd expression. 

“ What the devil ’s behind that? ” hectored the bully. 

“ O, little! ” purred the other. “ I fanc}’- I feel him nib- 
ble, that’s all. Perhaps you don’t happen to know how he 
hath cut his connection with the palace ? ’ ’ 

“What! When?” 

They all jumped to stare at him. 

“ This day,” he said, “ in offence of some carrion of Ga- 
leazzo’s which he had nosed out. The poor boy is particu- 


A TALE OF ITALY 


147 


lar in his tastes, for a shambles — ran like a sheep from the 
slaughter-house door, taking his Patch with him, and a ring 
her Grace had loaned him for a safe-conduct. I heard it 
said she would have been ravished of anything rather — by 
him. ’T was her lord’s troth-gift. The castle is one fume 
of lamentation.” 

Montano, rubbing his lean hands between his knees, went 
into a rejoicing chatter: 

“ We have him, we have him! Gods! who ’s here? ” 

Their intentness had deafened them some minutes earlier 
to a more mouthing note in the thunder of the rain, as if the 
swell of the tempest had been opened an instant and shut. 
The moment, in fact, and a master-key, had let in a new- 
comer. He had closed the latch behind him, and now, 
seeing himself observed, stood ducking and lowering in the 
blinking light. The philosopher heaved a tremulous sigh 
of relief. 

“ Narcisso! ” 

The hulking creature grinned, and stabbed a thumb over 
his shoulder. 

“ Hist! him you speak of ’s out there, a-seeking your 
worship.” 

“ Seeking me ? Messer Bembo ? ” 

“ Why not? A’ met him at the town gate half-drowned, 
with his Patch to heel. The report of his running was got 
abroad, and, thinks I to myself, here’s luck to my masters. 
To take him on the hop of grievance like ’ ’ 

Montano seemed to sip the phrase : 

“ Exactly: on the hop of grievance. Well ? ” 

“ Why, I spoke him fair: ‘ Whither away, master?’ A’ 
spat a saintly word — ’t were a curse in a sinner — and sprang 
back, a’ did, glaring at me. But the great Fool pushed him 
by. ‘ You ’re the man,’ says he. ‘ Desperation knows its 
fellows. Where’s Montano?’ ‘Why, what would you 
with him?’ says I, taken oiGF my guard. ‘A salve for his 


148 


BEMBO 


wouirds,’ he answered. And so I considered a bit, and 
brought ’em on, and there they wait.” 

Visconti uttered a furious oath, but lyampugnani hushed 
him down. 

“Didst well, pretty innocence,” he said to Narcisso. 
“The hop of grievance? — never a riper moment. Show 
in your friends.” 

He was serenely confident of his policy — waved all protest 
aside. 

“ I see my way: the hook is baited: let him bite.” 

“ Bite ? ” growled Visconti. “And what about our occu- 
pation here? ” 

“ Why, ’t is testing mail, nothing more. Is a lay-figure 
in an armory so strange ? ” 

“ Ay, when ’t is a portrait-model.” 

“ O glowing tribute to my art! I designed the doll, true. 
You make me look down, sir, and simper and bite my 
finger. Yet my mind misgives me thou flatterest. A 
portrait- model, yes; but will he recognise of whom ? ” 

“ The knave may — the shrewder fool of the pair.” 

“The greater fool will testify to me? O happy artist! 
Well, if he do, I will still account him naught. He will 
take the bait also. The shadow swims and bites with the 
fish. Besides, should this befall, ’t will save mayhap a 
world of preliminaries. Remember that ‘ hop of grievance.’ 
He comes, it seems, in a mood to jump with ours. Tet 
them in.” 

Dike souls salvaged from a wreck they came — the Fool 
propping the saint — staggering in by the door. Grief and 
storm and weariness had robbed the boy of speculation, 
almost of his senses. His drenched hair hung in ropes, his 
wild eyes stared beneath like a frightened doe’s, his clothes 
slopped on his limbs. 

Narcisso struggled with the door and closed it. 

Suddenly Bernardo, lifting his dazed lids, caught sight 


A TALE OF ITALY 


149 


of the shadowed lay-figure, recoiled, and shrieking out 
hoarsely: “ Galeazzo! Thou! O God, doomed soul! ” tot- 
tered and slid through Cicada’s limp arms upon the floor. 
Instantly Narcisso was down by his side, and fumbling with 
his hands. 

“A’ ’s in a swound,” he was beginning, when, with a 
rush and heave, the Fool sent him wallowing. 

“Barest thou, hog! darest [thou! Go rub thy filthy 
hoofs in ambergris first!” and he squatted, snarling and 
showing his teeth. 

Narcisso rose, to a chorus of laughter, and stood grin- 
ning and rubbing his head. 

“ Well, I never! ” he said. 


CHAPTER XIII 



HE Countess of Casa Caprona was a widow. The news 


1 was waiting to overwhelm, or transport, her upon her 
return to the castello after her interview with lyanti. On 
the one hand it committed her to dowagery, that last infirm- 
ity of imperious minds; on the other to the freedom of a 
glorified spinsterhood. Though she recognized that, on the 
whole, the blow was destructive of the real zest of intrigue, 
she behaved very handsomely by the memory of the de- 
ceased, who had died, like a soldier, in harness. She caused 
a solemn requiem mass to be sung for him in the Duomo; 
she commissioned a monody, extolling his marital virtues, 
from an expensive poet; she distributed liberal alms to the 
poor of the city. There is no trollop so righteous in her 
matronhood as she made timely a widow. Besides, to this 
one, the zest of all zests for the moment was revenge. She 
withdrew to mature it, and to lament orthodoxly her lord, 
to her dower-house in the Via Sforza. 

It was a very pretty spot for melancholy and meditation 
— cool, large, secluded, and its smooth, silent walks and 
bubbling fountains cloistered in foliage. From its gardens 
one had glimpses of the castello and of the candied, biscuit- 
like pinnacles of the cathedral. 

Cypresses and little marble fauns broke between them the 
flowering intervals, and peacocks on the gravel made wan- 
dering parterres of color. Sometimes, musing in the shades, 
with a lock of her long hair between her lips, she would pet 
her frowning fancy with the figure of a youthful Adam, 


A TALE OF ITALY 


51 


golden and glorious, approaching her down an avenue of 
this smiling paradise, making its mazes something less than 
scentless; and then, behold! a lizard, perhaps, would wink 
on the terrace, and she would snatch and crush the little 
palpitating life under her heel, cursing it for a symbol of the 
serpent desolating her Kden, and transforming it all into a 
mirage of warmth and passion. Not Adam he, that lusted- 
for, but the angel at the gate, menacing and awful. She 
must be more and worse than Kve to seek to corrupt an 
angel. 

Perhaps she was, in her most tortured, most animal 
moods. The sensuous, by training and heredity, had quite 
over-swollen and embedded in her beautiful trunk the 
small spike of conscience, which as a child had tormented, 
and which yet, at odd moments, would gall and tease her 
like an ancient wound. She might even have been stung 
by it into some devotional self-sacrifice in her present phase 
of passion, could she have been assured of, or believed in, 
its object’s inaccessibility to a higher grace of solicitation. 
But jealousy kept her ravening. 

On a languorous noon of this week of losses she was lying, 
a conventionally social exile, having her hair combed and 
perfumed, in a little green pavilion pitched in her grounds, 
when a hea\^ step on the gravel outside aroused her from a 
dream of voluptuous rumination. The tread she recognized, 
yet, though moved by it to a little flutter of curiosity, would 
not so far alloy a drowsy ecstasy as to bid the visitor enter 
while it lasted. Hypnotized by the soft burrowing of the 
comb, she closed her eyes until the perfect moment was 
passed, when, with a sigh, she bade the intruder enter, and 
Narcisso came slouching in by the opening. 

Beatrice dismissed her attendants with a look. She never 
spoke to her servants where a gesture would serve, and 
could draw hour-long silent enjoyment from the weary 
hands of tire- woman or slave, hairdresser or fanner, without 


152 


BEMBO 


a sign of embarrassment, or indeed understanding. Now 
sbe lay back, restful, impassive — indifferent utterly to any 
impression her will for a solitary interview with this gross 
creature might make upon them. And, indeed, there was 
little need for such concern. Hired assassination, a recog- 
nized institution, explained many otherwise strange con- 
junctions between the beauties and beasts of Milan. 

The beast, in the present instance, behaved as was habitual 
with him in the presence of this Circe. That is to say, he 
was awkward, deprecating, and, of stranger significance, de- 
voted to truthfulness. He adored her, as Caliban Miranda, 
but more fearfully : was her slave, the genii of the lamp of 
her loveliness, with which to be on any familiar terms, even 
of debasement, was enough. What did it matter that she 
paid him with offence and disdain ? Her use of him was 
as her use of some necessary organic part of herself. And 
she might deprecate the necessity; but the secret of it was, 
nevertheless, their common property. Her beauty and his 
devotion were as near akin as blood and complexion. Per- 
haps some day, in the resurrection of the flesh, he would be 
able to substantiate that kinship. 

The thought may have been there in him, instinctive, un- 
illuminated, as he stood fumbling with his cap, and raising 
and lowering his hang-dog eyes, and waiting for her to open. 
Physically, at least, she showed no shame in implying his 
close right to her confidence. The noon was a noon of 
slumbering fires, and her mood a responsive one. A long 
white camisole, of the frailest tissue, rounded on her lower 
limbs, and, splitting at the waist, straddled her shoulders 
clingingly, leaving a warm breathing-space between. Round 
her full neck clung one loop of emeralds; and to the picture 
her black falling hair made a tenderest frame, while the sun, 
penetrating the tilt above, finished all with a mist of green 
translucence. A Circe, indeed, to this coarse and animal 
rogue, and alive with awful and covetable lusts, to which, 


A TALE OF ITALY 


153 


nevertheless, he was an admitted procurer. He had not 
ceased to be in her pay and confidence, cursed and repudiated 
though he had been by his master, her erst protector. He 
had not even resented that episode of his betrayal at her 
hands, though it had condemned him for a living to the r61e 
of a hired bravo. She might always do with him as she 
liked; overbid with one imperious word his fast pledges to 
others; convert his craft wheresoever she wished to her own 
profit. The more she condescended to him, the more was 
he claimed a necessary part of her passions’ functions. She 
discharged through him her hates and desires, and he was 
beatified in the choice of himself as their medium. There 
was a suggestion of understanding, of a conscious partner- 
ship between them, in the very fulsomeness with which he 
abased himself before her. 

“ Well,” she murmured at last, “ hast drunk thy senses 
to such surfeit that they drown in me ? ” 

“Ay,” he mumbled, “ I could die looking.” 

“A true Narcissus,” she scoffed; “ but I could wish a 
sweeter. Stand away, fellow. Your clothes offend me.” 

He backed at once. 

“ Now,” she said, “ I can breathe. Deliver yourself! ” 

He heaved up his chest, and looked above her, concentrat- 
ing his wits on an open loop of the tent, behind which a 
bird was flickering and chirping. 

“ I come, by Madonna’s secret instructions, from privately 
informing Messer Lanti where Messer Bembo lies hidden,” 
he said, speaking as if by rote. 

She nodded imperiously. 

“ What questions did he ask ? ” 

“ How I knew; and I answered, that I knew.” 

“Good. That least was enough. Art a right rogue. 
Now will he go seek him, and be drawn by his devotion 
into this net.” 

Narcisso was silent. 


154 


BEMBO 


“ Will he not?” she demanded sharply. 

The fellow dropped his eyes to her an instant. 

“ Madonna knows. He loves the Messer Saint. No 
doubt a’ will hold by him.” 

“What then, fool?” 

“ They have not caught Messer Bembo yet, they at the 
forge — that is all.” 

“ How! ” she cried angrily, “ when thou told’st me ” 

“ With humility. Madonna,” he submitted, “ I told thee 
naught but that he and this Montano were agreed on the 
State’s disease.” 

“Well?” 

“ But I never said on its cure.” 

She frowned, leaning forward and again biting a strand 
of her hair — a sullen trick with her in anger. 

“A doctor of rhetoric, and so feeble in persuasion! ” she 
muttered scornfully. 

“A’ starts at a shadow, this saint,” pleaded Narcisso. 
“A’ must be coaxed, little by little, like a shy foal. We 
will have him in the halter anon. Yet a’ be only one out of 
five, when all ’s said.” 

“ Dolt! ” she hissed. “ What are the other four, or their 
purpose, to me, save as a lever to my revenge ? I foresee it 
all. Why telledst me not before I sent thee? Now this 
gross lord, instead of himself tangling in the meshes, will 
persuade the other back to court and reason and forgiveness, 
and I shall be worse than damned. Dolt, I could kill thee! ” 

She rose to her height, furious, and he shrunk cowering 
before her. 

“ Tisten, Madonna,” he said, trembling: “ Canst net 
them all yet at one swoop. Go tell Messer Tudovico, and 
certes a’ will jump to destroy the nest and all in it, before 
a’ enquires their degrees of guilt.” 

She stared at him, still threatening. 

“Why?” 


A TALE OF ITALY 


155 


“ ‘ Why,’ says Madonna? Listen again, then. Does the 
Ser Simonetta trust Messer Ludovico, or Messer Ludovico 
love the Ser Simonetta ? The secretary clings to the Duchess. 
If she falls, a’ falls with her.” 

“Again, thou tedious rogue, why should the saint’s de- 
struction bring Bona down ? ” 

“A’ would have his mouth shut from explaining.” 

“Explaining what ? I lose patience.” 

“ How a’ came, a conspirator against the Duke, to be 
found wi’ his wife’s troth ring in his possession. Here it 
be. I ’ve filched it for thee at last.” 

She sprang to seize the token, glowing triumphant in a 
moment, and putting it on her own finger, pressed the 
clinched hand that enclosed it into her bosom. 

She laughed low and rejoicingly, shameless in the quick 
transition of her mood. 

“ Good Narcisso! It is the Key at last! Let Lanti per- 
suade him back now— I am content. I hold them, and Bona 
too, in the hollow of this hand.” 

She held it out, her right one, palm upwards, and, smiling, 
bade him kiss it. 

“ Rogue,” she said, “to tease and vex me, and all the 
time this talisman in thy sleeve. Aye, make the most of it: 
snuffle and root. My dog has deserved of me.” 

He wiped his lips with the back of his hand, as if he had 
drunk. 

“ Now,” she said, “ how wert successful ? how won’st it, 
sweet put ? ’ ’ 

“ Took it from him, that was all.” 

“ How?” 

“ When a’ came tumbling in and staggered in a swound. 
Had heard Messer Andrea relating of how ’t was on him as 
I entered. Ho, ho! thinks I, here ’s that, maybe, will pay 
the filching! and I dropped and got it, all in a moment like.” 

“You never told me.” 


156 


BEMBO 


“ You never asked till yesterday. Then I had it not with 
me. But to-day, thinks I, I ’ll bring it up my sleeve for a 
win-favor — a good last card.” 

“No matter, since I have got it.” 

She held it out and gloated on its device and sparkle. She 
knew it well: indeed it was a famous gem, the Sforza lion 
cut in cameo on a deep pure emerald, and known as the 
Tion ring. 

“ Hath he not missed it ? ” she murmured. 

“ Not by any sign a’ gives. The sickness of that night 
still holds him half-amazed. A’ thinks our fine doll, even, 
but a bug of it — fancies a’ saw it in a dream like. They ’d 
locked it away when he came to.” 

“ Poor worldling! Poor little new-born worldling! He 
shall cut his pretty teeth anon. Well — for Messer Tanti ? 
Did he leap to the trail, or what ? ” 

“ That same moment. Belike they are together now.” 

She stood musing a little: then heaved a sudden sigh. . 

“Poor boy,” she murmured, “poor boy! is it I must 
seek to destroy thee! ” 

Her mood had veered again in a breath. Her eyes were 
full of a brooding love and pity. 

“ Not for the first time,” muttered Narcisso. 

She seemed not to hear him — to have grown oblivious of 
his presence. 

“ The song he sang to me! ” she murmured: “Ah, me, if 
that hour could be mine! A saint in heaven ? — not Bona’s! 
she hath a lord — no saint, did he love her. He looked at 
me : it came from his heart. If that hour could be mine! 
Not then — ’t were a sin — but now! That one hour — cher- 
ished — unspent — the seed of the unquickened pledge be- 
tween us to all eternity. I could be content, knowing him a 
saint through that abstinence. My hour — mine — to passion 
to my breast — the shadow of the child that would not be 
born to me. He looked at me — no spectre of a dead lost 


A TALE OF ITALY 


157 

love in his eyes — only a hopeless quest — bonds never to be 
riven. But now — Ah! I cannot kill him 1 ” 

She hid her eyes, shuddering. Narcisso, vaguely troubled, 
gloomed at her. 

“You will not go to Messer Ludovico ? ” he said. 

She returned to knowledge of him, as to a sense of pain 
out of oblivion. 

“Go,” she said coldly. “ Leave all to me. You have 
done well, and been paid your wages.” 

And he did not demur. It was not in her nature to gild 
her favors unnecessarily. Gold came less lavishly from her 
than kisses. Her pounds of flesh were her most profltable 
assets. She was a spendthrift in everything but money. 


CHAPTER XIV 


“ OO, Messer Bembo,” said Montano, between meditative 
O and caustic, “ you do not agree that our poor Lupo’s 
definition of a perfect government, an autocracy with an 
angel at its head, is a practicable definition ? ” 

He was stitting, as often during the last few days, at talk 
with the boy, on subjects civic, political, and theological. 
They had discussed at odd times the whole ethics of govern- 
ment, from the constitution of Lycurgus to the code of 
Thomas Aquinas: they had expounded, each in his way, a 
scheme or a dream of socialism: they had agreed, without 
prejudice, to liken the evolution of the simple Church of 
Peter into the complicated fabric of the fourth Sixtus to a 
woodland cottage, bought by some great princely family, and 
improved into a summer palace, which was grown out of 
harmony with its environments. Somewhat to his amaze- 
ment, Montano discovered that the boy was the opposite to 
a dogmatic Christian; that his was a religion, which, while 
conforming or adapting itself to the orthodox, was in its 
essence a religion of mysticism. No doubt the traditions of 
his origin, were, to some extent, to seek for this. A pledge, 
so to speak, of spontaneous generation, Bernardo accounted 
for himself on a theory of reincarnation from another sphere. 
He believed in the possibility of the resurrection of the body, 
which, though destroyed, and many times destroyed, could 
be, in its character of mere soul-envelope or soul expression, 
as regularly reconstructed at the will of its informing spirit. 
Death, he declared, was just the beginning of the return of 

158 


A TALE OF ITALY 


159 


that divested spirit to the spring of life — to the river welling 
in the central Kden from the loins of the Father, the spouse 
of Nature, the secret, the unspeakable God, of whom was 
Christ, his own dear brother and comrade. 

He would tell Messer Montano, with his sweet, frank eyes 
arraigning that crabbed philosopher’s soul, how this un- 
stained first-born of Nature, this sinless heir of love, this 
wise and pitying Christ, moved by an infinite compassion 
to see the wounded souls of His brothers — those few who had 
not made their backward flight too difficult — come, soiled 
and earth-cloyed, to seek their reincarnation in the spring, 
had descended. Himself, upon earth at last, sacrificing His 
birthright of divinity, that He might teach men how to live. 
And the men His brothers had slain Him, in jealousy, even 
as Cain slew Abel; yet had His spirit, imperishably great, 
continued to dwell in their midst, knowing that, did it once 
leave the earth, it must be forever, and to mankind’s eternal 
unregeneracy. For, so Bernardo insisted, there was an im- 
mutable law in Nature that no soul reincarnated could re- 
enter the sphere from which it was last returned, but must 
seek new fields of action. Wherefore all earth-loving spirits, 
which we call apparitions, were such as after death clung 
about the ways of men, in a yearning hopefulness to redeem 
them by touching their hearts with sympathy and their eyes 
with a mist of sorrow. And, of such gentle ghosts, Christ 
was but the first in faith and tenderness. 

A wild, dim theory, peopling woods, and fields, and cities 
with a mystic company — phantoms, yet capable of revealing 
themselves in fitful glimpses to the sinless and the sympa- 
thetic among men— ghosts, weaving impalpable webs of love 
across populous ways to catch men’s souls in their meshes. 
Montano called it all transcendental fustian. It aroused his 
most virulent scorn. What had this cloud-moulding, moon- 
paring stuff to do with the practical issues of life, with free- 
dom, and government by popular representation ? He even 


i6o 


BEMBO 


professed to prefer to it Eascaris, with his metaphysical 
jargon and apostolic succession of atoms. 

‘ ‘ He gives you at least something to take hold of, ’ ’ he 
snarled. “ Eisten to this” — and he condescended to read 
an excerpt from a recent treatise by his hated rival: 

‘ ‘ ‘ lyife,’ ’ ’ he read, “ ‘ is put out at compound interest. We 
represent, each in himself, a fraction of the principal, having 
a direct pedigree ab initio. As a spider will gather the hun- 
dred strands of his web into a little ball which he will swal- 
low, so might we each absorb and claim the whole vast web 
of life. Rolled up to include each radiating thread, the web 
becomes I; the spider is I; I am the principal of life — not 
the principle : that is Prometheus’ secret. 

“ ‘ I am a fraction of life’s compound interest. The sum 
of the mental impressions of all my thread of tendency 
(which gathers back, taking up cross threads by the way, to 
the central origin) is invested in my paltry being, and lieth 
there, together with mine own interest on the vast accumu- 
lation, in tail for my next of kin. What can I do in my tiny 
span but touch the surface of this huge estate: pluck here and 
there a flower of its fields, whose roots are in immemorial 
time? Imagination founders in those fathomless depths. 
Tenuous, dim-forgotten ghosts rise from them. Who shall 
say that my dreams, however seeming mad and grotesque, 
are not faithful reflexes of states and conditions which were 
once realities; memories of forms long extinct; echoes of 
times when I flew, or spun, or was gaseous, or vast or little; 
when I mingled intimate with shapes which are chimerical 
to my present understanding ’ ’ ’ 

The reader broke off, with an impatient grunt. 

“ There! ” he said, ” dreams mad and grotesque enough, 
in good sooth; 3 ^et not so mad as thine.” 

“Well,” said Bernardo, “well,” with perfect sweetness 
and good temper. 

“Christ in the world? Fah!” snarled the philosopher. 


A TALE OF ITALY 


i6i 


“ I know him. He sits at Rome under a triple tiara. Quit 
all this sugared dreaming, boy, and face the future like a 
man.” 

” Does the sun shine out of yesterday or to-morrow ? It 
is enough for the moment to take thought for itself. The 
future is not.” 

“ Pooh! a mere Jesuitry, justifying the moment’s abomina- 
tion.” 

“ Nay: for we shall have to re traverse our deeds, and 
carry back their burden to our first account — with most, a 
toilful journey.” 

“ They would do better to stop with your Christ, then; 
and, judged by the preponderance of evil spirits here, I 
think most do. No future, say’st? But how about that 
heir of the compound interest ? Is there not one waiting to 
succeed to him ? Where ? Why, in the future, as surely 
and inevitably as this date, which I am going to swallow in 
a moment, will be blood and tissue in me to-morrow.” 

He held the fruit up — with a swift movement Bernardo 
whipped it out of his hand and ate it himself. 

‘ ‘ How for your future now ? ” he chuckled, pinking all 
over. 

Cicada laughed loudly, and Montano swore. His phi- 
losophy was not proof against such practical jokes. But, 
seeing his fury, the boy put out all his sweetness to pro- 
pitiate him. He was his father’s friend; he was a man of 
learning; he had suffered grievous wrong. The dog was 
coaxed presently into opening again upon the angelic prin- 
ciples. It was by such virulent irony that he thought — so 
warped was his mental vision — to corrode the candor of this 
saint, and bend him to his own views and uses — a diseased 
vanity, even had he not reckoned, as will now appear, with- 
out the consideration of another possible factor. 

And “So,” said he upon a later occasion, in the sen- 
tence which opens this chapter, “ you do not agree with 


BEMBO 


162 

our poor Lupo’s practicable definition of a perfect gov- 
ernment? ” 

The saint’s steadfast eyes canvassed the speaker’s soul, 
as if in some shadowy suspicion of an integrity which they 
were being led, not for the first time, to probe. 

“ Why, Messer,” said he, “ practicable in so far as, by 
the dear Christ’s influence, grace may come to make an 
angel even of our Duke.” 

Montano tried to return his steady gaze, but failed meanly. 

” With submission, Messer Bernardo,” he sniggered, “ I 
can only follow, in my mind’s eye, one certain road to that 
great man’s apotheosis ? ” 

Bembo was silent. 

“ ’T is the road,” continued the other, “ taken before by 
the Emperor Nero.” 

” He stabbed himself, the most wretched pagan, in fear of 
a worser retribution than heaven’s,” said Bembo. “Alas! 
do you call that an apotheosis ? ’ ’ 

“ There are gods and gods,” said Montano, — “ Hades 
and Olympus. Belike Nero was welcomed of his kind, as 
Galeazzo would be. I can scarce see in the Duke the raw 
material of your fashion of angel. There ’s more of the 
harpy about him than the harp.” 

It was a heavenly day. Bernardo, still a little hectic and 
languid from his fever, sat in the embrasure of a window 
which gave upon the back court of the smithy. A muffled 
tinkling of armorers’ hammers reached his ears pleasantly 
from the rear of neighboring premises. There was a certain 
happy suggestiveness to him in the sound, evoked, as he 
hoped it might be, at his host Lupo’s instigation. For his 
endearing optimism had so wrought upon that stricken 
artificer, during the week he had dwelt in hiding with him, 
as to persuade the poor man to quit his self-despairing, and 
hire out his skill — not practically; that was no longer pos- 
sible; but theoretically — to a deserving fellow- craftsman. 


A TALE OF ITALY 


163 


Already the sense of touch was curiously refining in the 
sightless creature, and the glimmer of a new dawn of inter- 
est penetrating him. And he was at work again elsewhere. 

On the floor at Bembo’s feet, squatted Cicada, acrid, 
speaking little, and spending his long intervals of silence in 
staring at the girl Lucia, who, crouching at a distance away 
by the fireless forge, in the gloom of the shuttered smithy, 
seemed given over to an eternal reverie of hate. She, alone 
of the household, had remained impervious to all the sweet 
influences of sorrow and pity. Her wrong was such as no 
angel could remedy. 

Cicada spoke now, with a scowl of significance for Mon- 
tano: 

“ Speak plain, master philosopher. Innuendo is the 
weapon of Fools, and wisdom shall prevail in candor. 
Thou canst not picture to thyself this evangelized Duke ? ’ * 

Montano shot a lowering glance at him. 

“No, I confess, master Patch,” said he — “ unless,” he 
added grinning, “ by Nero’s road.” 

“Two whispers do not make one outspokenness,” an- 
swered the Fool. “ Hast hinted Nero once, and once again, 
and still we lack the application. Nero was driven to the 
road, quotha; well, by whom? — one Galba, an my learn- 
ing ’s not a’ rust. What then ? Is Galba going to drive 
Galeazzo ? ” 

“ Nay, Love, dear Cicca,” put in Bernardo, but half 
hearing and half understanding. 

“ Love! ” cried the Fool. “ Thou hast hit it. Hear wis- 
dom from the mouths of babes. Love in the hands of rascals 
— a tool, a catspaw, to pull them their chestnuts from the 
fire, and then be cast burnt aside.” 

He addressed himself, with infinite irony, to Montano. 

“ Good master philosopher,” said he, “ there is one fable 
for you: listen while I relate another. A certain rogue was 
stripped and beaten by a greater, who going on his way, 


164 


BEMBO 


there came a stranger, a mere child, and marked the fellow 
groaning. ‘ Poor soul! ’ quoth he in pity; and knelt and 
bound his hurts and gave him wine, and by kind arts re- 
stored him. When shortly the aggressor returning and 
whistling by that place, his erst- victim, stung to revenge, 
yet having no weapon left him, did leap and incontinent 
seize up by his heels the ministering angel, and using his 
body for flail, knock down his enemy with him, killing both 
together. Which having done, and picked their pockets, 
on his way goes he rejoicing, ‘ Now do I succeed to mine 
enemy’s purse and roguery! ’ ” 

He ended. Montano, glancing stealthily at Bernardo, 
wriggled and tittered uneasily. 

“ Patch hath spoken,” he said, ” great is Patch! ” 

“ I have spoken,” quoth the Fool. “ Dost gather the 
moral ? ’ ’ 

“ Not I, indeed.” 

“ Why, sir, ’t is of roguery making himself master of 
Love’s estate; and yet that is not the full moral neither. 
For I mind me of a correction: how, before the blow was 
struck. Folly stepped between, and snatched Love from such 
a fate, and left the rogues to their conclusions.” 

“Well, Folly and Love were well mated. Have you 
done ? I am going to my books. ’ ’ 

He yawned and stretched himself, and rose. 

“ ‘ I will show you to the door,’ says Folly,” chirped 
Cicada, and skipped about the other as he went, with a 
mincing affectation of ceremonial. But when they were got 
out of immediate sight and hearing of Bernardo into the front 
chamber, like a wolf the Fool snapped upon the philosopher, 
and pinned him into a corner. 

“ Understoodst my fable well enough,” he grated, in a 
rapid whisper. “ What! I have waited this opportunity a 
day or two. Now the stopper is out, let us flow.” 

Montano, taken by surprise, was seized with a tremor of 


A TALE OF ITALY 165 

irresolution. He returned the Fool’s gaze with a frown un- 
certain, sullen, eager all in one. 

“ Flow then,” he muttered, after a little. 

“ I flow,” went on the other, “ oil and verjuice combined. 
Imprimis, think not that because I read I would betray thee. 
Ay, ay — no need to start, sir. Thou shalt not quit play- 
ing with thy doll for me; nay, nor dressing and goring it, 
if thou wilt, with triangles of steel. O, I saw ! — the face 
and the slashes in it, too. I have not since been so ill, like 
him there, as to read a phantasy out of fact. What then ? 
Would ye silence me ? ’ ’ 

“ Go on,” whispered Montano hoarsely. 

“ Well, I flow,” returned the Fool. “ Did I not tell thee 
candor was the best part of wisdom ? Learn by it, then. I 
have marked thee of late; O, trust me, I have marked thee, 
thy hints and insinuations. And hereby by folly I swear, 
could once I think my master wax to such impressions, I 
would kill him where he stands, and damn my soul to send 
his incorrupt to heaven. You sneer? Sneer on. Why, I 
could have laughed just now to see you, tortuous, sound his 
sweet candid shallows, where every pebble ’s plain. Do 
your own work, I ’ll not speak or care. You shall not have 
him to it, that ’s all. Sooner shall the heavens fall, than he 
be led by you to poison Galeazzo. Is that plain ? ” 

It was so plain, that the philosopher gasped vainly for a 
retort. 

‘ ‘ Who— who spoke of poison ? ” he stammered. ‘ ‘ Not I. 
Dear Messer Fool, you wrong me. This hoy — proUgi 
of della Grande— mine old friend— I would not so misuse 
him. Why, he succored me — an ill requital. If I sounded 
him, ’t was in self-justiflcation only. We seek the same 
end by different roads— the ancient Gods restored— the re- 
turn to Nature. Is it not so ? Christ or Hyperion— I will 
not quarrel with the terms. ‘ Knowledge,’ saith he, ‘ is the 
fool that left his Fden.’ Well, he harks back, and so do I.” 


i66 


BEMBO 


“ No further, thou, than to Rome and Regillus; but he to 
Paradise. Halt him not, I say. He shall not be thy cats- 
paw. On these terms only is my silence bought.” 

“Then is it bought. Why, Fool, I could think thee a 
fool indeed. He hath forsworn the court: how could we 
think to employ him there? ” 

“You know, as I know, sir, that this secession is a paren- 
thesis, no more. He came to cure the State — not your way. 
A little repentance will win him back. The disease is in 
the head — he sees it; not in these warped limbs that the 
brain governs. He will go back anon.” 

‘ ‘ And reign again by love ? ’ ’ 

“ I hope so, as first ministers reign.” 

“ No more? Well, we will back him there.” 

“ Again, be warned; not your way. Make him no text 
for the reform which builds on murder. I have spoken. ’ ’ 

“Well, we will not. Vale !'' — and the philosopher, 
bowing his head, slunk out by the door which the other 
opened for him. 

A little later, creeping into a narrow court which was the 
“ run” to his burrow, at the entrance he crossed the path 
of two cavaliers, whom, upon their exclaiming over the 
encounter, he drew under an archway. 

They were come from playing pall-mall on the ramparts, 
and carried over their shoulders the tools of their sport — 
thin boxwood mallets, painted with emblematic devices in 
scarlet and blue, and having handle-butts of chased silver. 
Each gentleman wore red full-hose ending in short-peaked 
shoes, a plain red biretta, and a little green bodice coat, 
tight at the waist and open at the bosom to leave the arms 
and shoulders free play. Montano squinted approval of their 
flushed faces and strong-breathed lungs. 

“ Well exercised,” quoth he, in his high-pitched whisper; 
“ well exercised, and betimes belike.” 

‘ ‘ News ? ’ ’ drawled Eampugnani. ‘ ‘ O, construe thyself! ’ ’ 


A TALE OF ITALY 167 

The Fool,” answered Montano, “ sees through us, that 
is all.” 

“ What! ” Visconti’s brows came down. 

“Hush! He hath warned me — not finally; only he 
pledges his silence on the discontinuance of my practices on 
his cub.” 

“ Well,” said Lampugnani serenely; “ discontinue.” 

‘ ‘ Messer, he looks, with certainty, to the boy being won 
back to court anon. How, then! shall we let him go? ” 

“ No! ” rapped out Visconti. 

“ Yes,” said Lampugnani. “ I trow his good way is after 
all our best. Let him go back, and make the State so fast 
in love with love as to prove Galeazzo impossible. He will 
sanctify our holocaust for us.” 

“ But the Fool, Messer — the Fool! ” 

“Will never conspire against his adored master’s exalta- 
tion.” 

“Exaltation? Would ye let this saint, then, to become 
the people’s idol ? ” 

“Ay, that we may discredit him presently for an adulter- 
ous idol. No saint so scorned as he whose sanctity trips on 
woman.” 

‘ ‘ What! You think ? ’ ’ 

“Exactly — yes — the Duchess. Vale, Messer Montano!” 

— and he lifted his cap mockingly, and moved off. 

In the meanwhile Cicada, having watched, through a slit 
of the unclosed door, the retreat and disappearance of the 
philosopher, was about to shut himself in again, with a 
muttered objurgation or two, when a rapid step sounded 
without, and on the instant the door was flung back against 
him, and Messer Lanti strode in. There was no opportunity 
given him to temporize: the great creature was there in a 
moment, and had recognized him with a “ pouf! ” of relief. 
He just accepted the situation, and closed the door upon 
them both. 


i68 


BEMBO 


‘‘ Well,” he said acridly, “ here you be, and whether for 
good or ill let the gods answer! ” 

Lanti stretched his great chest. 

“ It is well. Fool; and I am well if he is well. Where is 
he?” 

Cicada pointed. The girl by the forge crouched and 
glared unwinkingly. The next moment Carlo was in his 
loved one’s arms. 

“ Why hast hidden thyself, boy ? — ah! it is a long while, 
boy — good to see thee again — stand off — I cannot see thee 
after all — a curse on these blinking eyes! ” 

“ Dear Carlo, I have been a little ill; my joints ached.” 

He wept himself, and fondled and clung to his friend. 

“ Thou great soft bully! For shame! Why, I love thee, 
dear. Wert thou so hurt? O, Carlo! I have been most ill 
in spirit.” 

“ Come back, and we will nurse thee.” 

“ Alas! What nurses! ” 

“ The tenderest and most penitent — Bona, first of all.” 

The arms slid from his neck. Sweet angel eyes glowered 
at him. 

‘ ‘ Bona to heal my spirit ? To pour fire into its wounds 
rather! O, I had thought her pure till yesterday! ” 

And, indeed, Montano, in the furtherance of his corroding 
policy, had spared him no evidences of court scandal. 

Carlo hung his bullet head. 

“ Lucia! ” cried the boy suddenly and sternly. 

The girl, at the word, came slinking to him like a dog, 
setting her teeth by the way at the stranger. Bernardo put 
his hand on her lowered head. 

“ Dost know who this is? ” he asked of Carlo. 

“ Why, I can guess.” 

“ Canst thou, and still talk of Bona’s penitence ? Here ’s 
proof of it — in this foul deed unexpiated. Was it ever meant 
it should be ? ” 


A TALE OF ITALY 


169 


He raised his arm denunciatory. 

“ They have used me to justify their abominations; they 
have made mine innocence a pander to their lusts. Beware! 
God’s patience nears exhaustion. We wait for Tassino. 
Will he come? Not while lewd arms imprison and protect 
him. Talk to me of Bona! Go, child.” 

The girl crept back to her former seat. Carlo burst out, 
low and urgent: 

“Nay, boy, you do the Duchess wrong; now, by Saint 
Ambrose, I swear you do! She hath not set eyes on Jacka- 
napes since that day — believe it — nor knows, more than 
another, what ’s become of him.” 

‘ ‘ I could enlighten her. Can she be so fickle ? ’ ’ 

“What! Don’t you want her fickle? You make my 
brain turn.” 

“ O, Carlo! What can such a woman see in such a man ? ” 

“ God! You have me there. She ’s just woman, con- 
forming to the fashions.” 

“ Ah me! the fashions! ” 

“ Woman’s religion.” 

“ She was taught a better. The fashions! Her wedding- 
gown should suffice her for all.” 

“What! Night and day? But, there, I don’t defend 
her! ” 

“ No, indeed. Art thyself a fashion.” 

“ I don’t defend her, I say. I ’m worn and cast aside 
too.” 

“ Poor fashion! You ’ll grace your mistress’ tire-woman 
next; and after her a kitchen-maid; and last some draggled 
scarecrow of the streets. O, for shame, for shame! ” 

“ Go on. Compare me to Tassino next.” 

“ Indeed, I see no difference.” 

“A low-born Ferrarese! A greasy upstart! Was carver 
to the Duke, no better; and oiled his fingers in the dish, 
and sleeked his hair! ” 


i;o 


BEMBO 


“Well, lie was made first fashion. The Duchess sets 
them.” 

“ Now, by Saint Ambrose! First fashion! this veal-faced 
scullion, this fat turnspit promoted to a lap-dog! His 
fashion was to nurse lusty babies in his eyes! ” 

“ What nursed thou in thine ? ” 

“ Go to! I ’m a numskull, that I know; but to see no 
more in me! ” 

“ I speak not for myself.” 

“ Why, these women, true, whom we hold so delicate — 
coarser feeders than ourselves — their tastes a fable. There, 
you ’re right; I ’ve no right to talk.” 

“Not yet.” 

“ Then, you ’re wrong. We ’ve parted, I and Beatrice.” 
“Carlo!” 

“ Didst think I ’d risk a quarrel with my saint on so small 
a matter ? ’ ’ 

“Carlo!” 

He flew upon the great creature and hugged him. 

“ My dear, my love! O, I went on so! Why did you let 
me ? O, you give me hope again! ” 

“ There,” growled the honest fellow, still a little sulkily. 
“ ’T was to please myself, not you.” 

“Not me!” 

“ Well, if I did, please me by returning.” 

Bernardo shook his head. 

“And seem to acquiesce in this?” He signified the 
girl. 

“ No seeming,” said Tanti. “ The Duchess promises to 
abet you in everything. I was to say so, an I could find 
thee.” 

“ How did you find me ? ” 

“ Tet that pass. Will you come ? ” 

“Will she hold Tassino to his bond ? ” 

“ She ’ll try to— I ’ll answer for it.” 


A TALE OF ITALY 


171 

“ Will she excuse the Countess of Casa Caprona from her 
duties to her — for your sake, dear ? ” 

“No need. The lady ’s a widow, and already self-dis- 
missed. ’ ’ 

“Alas, a widow! O Carlo, that heavy witness gone 
before! “ 

“ I must stand it. Will you come ? “ 

‘ ‘ Why is this sudden change ? I sore misdoubt it for a 
fashion.” 

“ Not sudden. I have her word the court goes all astray 
without thee. She pines to mother thee.” 

“Mother! — an adulteress for mother! Alack, I am 
humbled! ” 

“ Not so low as she. That touches the last matter. She 
wants the ring back she lent thee.” 

“The ring?” 

“ Ay, the ring.” 

“Carlo!” 

He searched his clothes and hands in amaze. 

“My God! It »s gone! ” 

“ Gone ? Look again.” 

‘ ‘ I had it on my finger. Till this moment I had forgot it 
clean — my brain so ached. Cicca! ” 

He turned in trouble on his servant. 

“ I know nought of it,” growled the Fool. “ If you had 
but chose to tell me. I am no gossip. Bona’s ring was it, 
and leased to thee ? Mayhap the rain that night washed it 
from thy finger.” 

“ If it were so — so great a trust abused! O Carlo! What 
shall I do?” 

“ Come back and make thy peace with her.” 

Yet his brow gloomed, and he shook his head. 

“ O, O! ” choked Bernardo, noting him with anguish. 

“She sent a message — I can’t help myself,” grunted 
Carlo. ‘ * Did you seek to retaliate on her innocent confidence 


1^2 


BEMBO 


by ruining her ? She meant the ring — your withholding it 
— ’t was her troth-token from the Duke. Well, this is like 
getting a woman into trouble.” 

Bernardo cast himself with a cry upon him. 

” I will go back! I have no longer choice. I must hold 
myself a hostage to that loss! ” 

Carlo let out his satisfaction in a growl. But Cicada, 
squinting at the two, and rasping thoughtfully on his chin, 
pondered a speculation into a conviction. 

“ Narcisso! ” he mused, “ was it he took it ? As sure as 
he is a villain, it was Narcisso took it! ” 


CHAPTER XV 


HE astutest of all the six Sforza brothers was, without 



1 question, Messer Ludovico, at present sojourning in 
the castello of Milan. No higher than fourth in point of 
age, policy or premonition had never ceased to present him 
to himself for the first in succession. The uncertainty of 
life’s tenure, unless ameliorated a little by qualities of tact 
and conciliation like his own, made him some excuse for this 
secret conviction. His eldest brother was a monster of the 
order which, in every age, invites tyrannicide; the Lord of 
Bari, the second, an ease-loving, good-humored monster of 
another kind (he was to die shortly, in fact, of his own 
obesity), he valued only as so much gross bulk of supineness 
to be surmounted; Filippo, the third, was an imbecile, whose 
very existence was already slipping into the obscurity which 
was presently to spell obliteration. There remained only, 
junior to himself, Ascanio, a nonentity, and Ottavanio, a 
headstrong, irresponsible boy, whose possible destiny con- 
cerned him as little as though he foresaw his drowning, 
-within the year, in the Adda River. 

It was true that one other, more shrilly self-assertive, 
stood between himself and the light — the Duke’s little son, 
Gian-Galeazzo. Here, most people would have thought, 
was his real insuperable barrier. 

He did not regard matters from these popular points of 
view. He was very patient and far-seeing. At the outset 
of his career he had adopted for his device the mulberry-tree, 
because he had observed it to be cautious of putting forth its 


174 


BEMBO 


leaves until the last of winter was assured. He could pic- 
ture the fatherless child as the most opportune of all steps to 
his exaltation. To climb presently those little shoulders to 
the regency! It would go hard with him but they sank 
gradually crushed under his weight. This was the wise 
policy, to get his seat as proxy, and through merciful and 
enlightened rule secure its permanency. There was infinite 
scope in the reaction he would make from a coarse and 
bloody despotism. His nature hated violence; his reason 
recognized the eternal insecurity of power built on it. 
Otherwise there was little doubt he might, in that first 
emergency, strike with good chance the straight usurper’s 
stroke. His name, for graciousnes and refinement, already 
shone like a star in the gross bog of Milan, revealing to it its 
foulness. Men, in the shame of their fulsome bondage to 
tyranny, looked up to him for hope and sympathy. He was 
even persona grata with the people. 

But he abhorred, and disbelieved in, violence. He would 
rule, if at all, in the popular recognition of great qualities: 
he would prevail through bounty and tolerance. Bona was 
his crux — Bona, and the secretary Simonetta, a fellow in- 
corruptibly devoted to the reigning family. While these 
two lived in credit with the duchy, the regency was secure 
from him, and the State, he told himself, from progress. 
For what woman-regent had ever mothered an era of en- 
lightenment ? Good for Milan, good for Tombardy, could 
he once discredit and ruin Bona and Simonetta. They 
would fall together. The uses of Tassino as an instrument 
to this end had occurred to him — only to be rejected. How 
could he hope so to disgrace corruption in corruption’s eyes ? 
Such puppyish intrigue was not worth even the Duke’s in- 
terference. He rated that curly perfumed head in Bona’s 
lap at exactly the value of a puppy’s. 

But, with the advent of the stranger, the little pseudo- 
oracle, the child Tiresias, sweet and blind as Cupid, a 


A TALE OF ITALY 


175 


sounder opportunity Offered. To involve Bona in the defile- 
ment of this purity, in the violating of this holy trust, adored 
by the people and bequeathed to her by her lord — that was, 
in the vernacular, another pair of shoes. He had noted, 
with secret gratification, her first coquetting with the pretty 
toils. He had heard, with plenteous dismay, of the boy’s 
untimely secession. But he possessed, almost alone in his 
tumultuous time, the faculty of patience; and he was well 
served by his well-paid spies and agents. Almost before he 
could order their reports, almost before he could gauge the 
significance of one especial piece of information they gave ' 
him, the boy, won to forgiveness, was back at court again. 
Thenceforth he saw his way smoothly, if any term so bland 
could be applied to such a devious course of policy. 

That was a matter of cross-roads, leading from, or to, 
himself, the mute signpost of direction. One, for instance, 
pointed to Bona’s disgrace through Bembo; another to 
Simonetta’s disgrace through Bona’s disgrace; a third, to 
Bembo’s downfall; a fourth, and last, to his nephew’s or- 
phaned minority. And the meeting-place, the nucleus, of 
all these tendencies was— -where he himself stood, on a grave. 
For did they not bury suicides at cross-roads, and was not 
Galeazzo’s policy suicidal? Of all these birds he might kill 
three, at least, with one stone; and that stone, he believed, 
was already in his hand, or nearly. 

Let it not be supposed that Ludovico was a wicked man. 
He was destined to bear one of the greatest of the renaissance 
reputations; but that reputation was to draw no less from 
munificence than from magnificence, from tolerance than 
from power. He stood, at this time, on the forehead of an 
epoch, feeling the promise of his wings, poising and waiting 
only for their maturity. His sympathies were all with pro- 
gress, with moral emancipation. He was even now, in 
Milan (if it can be said without blasphemjO, comparable to 
Christ in Hades. In a filthy age he was fastidious; precise 


176 


BEMBO 


and delicate in his speech; one of those men before whom 
the insolence of moral offences is instinctively silent. Guic- 
ciardini, a grudging Florentine, nevertheless pronounced 
him when he came to rule, “ milde and mercifull Arluno 
credited him with a sublimity of justice and benevolence. 
Others, less interested, testified to his wisdom and sagacity, 
about which there was certainly no disputing. If at any 
period the wrong that is ready to perpetrate itself in order to 
procure good is justifiable, it was to be justified in these cor- 
rupt years, when conformity with usage spelt putrefaction. 
He could foresee no health for the State in patching its dis- 
ease. He was the operator predestined by Providence to 
remove, stock and block, the cancer. 

Yet, though loving truth, he lied; yet, though hating the 
sight of blood, he procured its shedding; yet, though admir- 
ing virtue, he did not hesistate to prostitute it to his ends. 
These were crimes attributed to him of which he was no 
doubt innocent; there were lesser, or worse, unrecorded, of 
which he was no doubt guilty. Feeling himself, by tem- 
perament and intellect, the inevitable instrument of a vast 
emancipation, recognizing his call to be as peremptory as 
it was unconsidered, he had no choice, in obeying it, but to 
cast scruples to the winds. With him, as with his con- 
temporary the English Richard, a deep fervor of patriotism 
was at once the goad and the destruction. Judgment on 
the means both took to vindicate their commissions rests with 
the gods, who first inspired, then repudiated them. But 
there is no logic in Olympus. 

Eudovico was sitting one evening in his private cabinet in 
the castello, when a lady was announced to him by the soft- 
voiced page. Every one instinctively subdued his speech in 
the presence of Messer Ludovico, even the rough venderac- 
cios who occasionally came to make him their reports or 
receive his instructions. 

The lady came in, and stood silent as a statue by the 


A TALE OF ITALY 


177 


heavy portiere, which, closed, cut off all eavesdropping as 
effectively as a mattress. Nevertheless Messer Ludovico 
waited for full assurance of the page’s withdrawal before he 
rose, and courteously greeted his visitor. 

“Ave, Madonna Beatrice! ” he said. “ You are welcome 
as the moonlight in my poor apartment.” 

It was so far from being that, as to make the compliment 
an extravagance. Yet the beauty of the woman in her long 
black robe and mantle, and little black silk cap dropping 
wings of muslin, sorted gravely enough with the slumberous 
gold of picture frames under the lamplight, and all the 
sombre sparkle of gems and glass and silver with which the 
chamber was strewed in a considered disorder. 

“ You sent for me, Messer, and I have come,” she said. 
Her low, untroubled voice was quite in keeping with the rest. 

“ Fie, fie! ” he answered smoothly. “ I begged a privi- 
lege, I begged an honor — with diffidence, of one so lately 
stricken. Will you be seated while I stand ? ” 

As her subject, he meant to imply. She accepted the 
condescension for what it was worth. He bent his heavy 
eyebrows on her pleasantly. They were full and shaggy for 
so young a man. Presently she found the silence intolerable. 

“You sent for me, Messer,” she repeated coldly. “Will 
you say on account of which of your interests ? ” 

“See the dangerous intuition of your sex!” he retorted 
smilingly — “ a weapon wont to cut its wielder’s hand. On 
account of interest, purely.” 

She glanced up at him with insolent incredulity. 

“ True,” he said. “ I desired only to save you the con- 
sequences of an imprudence. That troth-ring. Madonna, 
our Duchess’s: is it not rather a perilous toy to play with ? ” 
She was startled, for all her immobility — so startled, that 
he could see the breath jump in her bosom. But in the very 
gasp of her fear, she caught herself to recollection, and stiff- 
ened, silent, to the ordeal she felt was coming. 


178 


BEMBO 


“ How did I know it was in your possession?” he said, 
with a little whisper of a laugh. ‘ ‘ Your beauty is ever more 
speaking than your lips, Madonna; but I am an oracle: I can 
read the unspoken question. There is a creature, Narcisso 
his name, once fellow to a loved servant of our court. You 
know Messer Tanti ? an honest, bluff gentleman. He did 
well to part with such a dangerous rogue. Why, the times 
are complicate: we should be choice in our confidants. This 
Narcisso is very well to slit a throat; but to negotiate a 
delicate theft ” 

He paused. “ Go on,” she whispered. 

“ I will be frank as day,” he purred. “ ’T was seen on 
this rogue’s finger, when making for your house. It was 
not there when he left. ’ ’ 

“The gloating fool!” She stabbed out the words. 
“Seen! By whom?” 

‘ ‘ By one, ’ ’ he answered, ‘ ‘ whose business it was to look 
for it.” 

“Whom, Isay?” 

“ Most high lady, the very predestined man — no other. 
Would you still ask whom ? I had thought you more accom- 
plished. Intrigue, like a statue, is not carved out with a 
single tool. The eyes, the ears, the lips, each demand their 
separate instrument. Dost thou seek to shape all with one ? 
O, fie! fie!” 

He shook his finger gaily at her. She sat, frowning, with 
her hands clenched before her; but she gave no answer. 

“ Why, I am but a tyro,” said the prince; “ yet could I 
teach thee, it seems, some first precepts in our craft — as thus: 
Use things most useful for their uses; employ not your dag- 
ger as a shoe-horn, or it may chance to cut your heel; an 
instrument hath its purpose and design; think not one pass- 
word will unlock all camps; selection is the cream of policy 
— and so on.” 

She started to her feet, in an instant resolution. 


A TALE OF ITALY 


179 


I have the ring,” she said. 

He bowed suavely. She stared at him. 

“ What then, Messer ? ” 

Why,” he said, ” only that, do you not think, it were 
safer in my hands than in yours?” 

“ Safer! ” she cried in a suppressed voice; ” for whom ? ” 
Yourself,” he answered serenely. 

“Ah!” she cried, “you would threaten, if I refuse, to 
destroy me with it ? ” 

He made a deprecating motion with his hands. 

“Beware,” she said fiercely; “I can retort. Where is 
Tassino?” 

He looked at her kindly. 

“ Madonna, do you not know ? Nay, do I not know that 
you know ? He lies hidden in the burrow of this same Nar- 
cisso.” 

“At whose instigation? Not yours, Messer — O no, of 
course, not yours! ” 

His lips never changed from their expression of smiling 
good-humor. 

“ Entirely at mine,” he said. 

She gave a little gasp. His subtlety was too chill a thing 
for her fire; but she struggled against her quenching by it: 

“ Why do you not produce him, then ? Do you not know 
that he is cried for high and low ? that he is wanted to com- 
plete his contract with the armorer’s drab? It is an ill 
thing to cross, this present ecstasy of conversion. We are 
all Bernardines now — lunatics — latter-day Cistercians — 
raging neophytes of love.” 

“ While the ecstasy lasts,” he murmured, unruffled. 

“Ah! ” she cried violently, “ yet may it last your time. 
Fanaticism is no respecter of rank or service. Standest thou 
so well with Bona ? She would have racked the racker him- 
self in the first fury of her contrition — torn confession from 
Jacopo’s sullen throat with iron hooks, had not her saint 


i8o 


BEMBO 


rebuked her. Tassino had been last seen by him in the 
man’s company, but, when they went to look for him, he 
was gone. When or whither, the fellow swore he knew not. 
It was like enough, thou being the lure. Will you not pro- 
duce him now, and save your peace ? ’ ’ 

Ludovico, regarding her vehemence from under half-closed 
lids, exhibited not the slightest tremor. 

“Madonna,” he said, “thy mourning beauty becometh 
thee like Cassandra’s. Hast thou, too, so angered Apollo 
with thy continence as to make him nullify in thee his own 
gift of prophecy ? Alas, that lips so moving must be so dis- 
counted in their warnings! ” 

She drew back, chilled and baffled. 

“ Thou wilt not ? ” she muttered. “ Well, then, thou wilt 
not. Take thou thine own course; I may not know the 
purpose.” 

For a moment the cold of him deepened to deadliness, and 
his voice to an iron hardness: 

“ Nor any like thee — self-seekers — dominated by some 
single lust. My purpose is a labyrinth of Cnossus. Beware, 
rash fools, who would seek to unravel it! ” 

Her lips were a little parted; the fine wings of her nostrils 
quivered. For all her bravery she felt her heart constricting 
as in the frost of some terror which she could neither gauge 
nor compass. But, in the very instant of her fear, Ludovico 
was his own bland self again. 

“ Tools, tools! ” he said smiling — “ for the eyes, the ears, 
the lips. I shall take up this one when I need it, not before. 
Meanwhile it lies ready to my hand.” 

“ I do not doubt thy cunning,” she said faintly. 

“ What then, Madonna ? ” he asked. 

She struggled with herself, swallowing with difficulty. 

“ Its adequacy for its purpose — that is all.” 

“ What purpose?” 

She looked up, and dared him: 


A TALE OF ITALY 


i8i 


“ To destroy the Duchess.” 

He laughed out, tolerantly. 

“ Intuition! Intuition! O thou self- wounding impulse! 
To destroy the Duchess ? Well! What is thy ring for ? To 
destroy Monna Beatrice, belike. And Monna Beatrice had 
her instrument too, they will say afterwards — a blunt, coarse 
blade, but hers, hers only — as she thought. Yet, it seems, 
one Ludovic used something of him, this Narcisso, also — 
played him for his ends — marked him down, even, for land- 
lord to a fribble called Tassino. What, Carissima! He 
hath not told thee so much ? ’ ’ 

She shook her head dully. 

“ No ? ” mocked the prince. “And ye such sworn allies! 
O sweet, you shall learn policy betimes! You will not yield 
the ring ? Well, there is Tassino, as you say. Play him 
against it.” 

She knew she dared not. The vague implication of forces 
and understandings behind all this banter quite cowed 
her. She had defied the serpent, and been struck and 
overcome. Hate was no match for this craft. But emotion 
remained. She dwelt a long minute on his smooth, im- 
penetrable face; then, all in an instant, yielded up her sex, 
and stole towards him, arms and moist eyes entreating. 

“ I dared thee; I was wrong. Only ” 

Her palms trembled on his shoulders; her bosom heaved 
against his hand. 

“ I have suffered, what only a woman can. O Messer, let 
me keep the ring! ” 

Her voice possessed him like an embrace; the soft plead- 
ing of it made any concession to his kindness possible. He 
was very sensitive to all emotions of loveliness, but with the 
rare gift of reasoning in temptation. 

He shook his head. 

“Ah!” she murmured, “let me. Thou shalt find jeal- 
ousy a hot ally.” 


BEMBO 


182 

She pressed closer to him. He neither resisted nor invited. 

“Most excellent sweetness,” he said gently. “I melt 
upon this confidence. Henceforth we ’ll bury misunder- 
standing, and kiss upon his grave. But truth with sugar is 
still a drug. A jealous woman is bad in policy. Trust her 
always to destroy her betrayer, though through whatever 
betrayal of her friends. Besides, forgive me, Messer Bembo 
may yet prove accommodating. ’ ’ 

At that she dropped her hands and stepped back. 

“Is this to bury misunderstanding ? ’ ’ she cried low. O, 
I would / were Duchess of Milan.” 

“ More impossible things might happen,” he said, thickly, 
for all his self-control. 

She stared at him fascinated a moment; then swiftly ad- 
vanced again. 

‘ ‘ Tet me keep the ring, ’ ’ she urged hoarsely. ‘ ‘ I could set 
something against it — some knowledge — some information.” 

He had mastered himself in the interval; and now stood 
pondering upon her and fondling his chin. 

“ Yes ? ” he murmured. ‘ ‘ But it must be something to be 
worth.” 

She hesitated; then spoke out: 

“A plot to kill the Duke — no more.” 

The two stared at one another. She could see a pulse 
moving in his throat; but when at last he spoke, it was 
without emotion. 

“ Indeed, Madonna? They are so many. When is this 
particular one to be ? ” 

“ Do you not know ? ” she answered as derisively as she 
dared. “ I thought you had a tool for everything. Well, 
it is to be in Milan.” 

“ In Milan — as before,” he repeated ironically. “And 
the heads of this conspiracy, Madonna ? ’ ’ 

“Ah! ” she cried, with a sigh of triumph; “ they are yours 
at the price of the ring.” 


A TALE OF ITALY 


183 


He canvassed her a little, but profoundly. 

“After all,” he murmured, “ why should I seek to know ? ” 

“Why?” she said, with a laugh of recovering scorn, 
“ why but to nip it in its bud, Messer? ” 

He was quick to grasp this implied menace of retaliation. 

“ Tell me,” he said, “ why are you so hot to retain this 
same ring ? ’ ’ 

“ For only a woman’s reason,” she answered. “ Wouldst 
thou understand it ? Not though I spoke an hour by St. 
Ambrose’ clock. I would deal the blow myself, in my own 
way — that is all.” 

“ Thou wouldst ruin Bona ? ” 

“ Ay, and her saint, who robbed me of my love.” 

“By her connivance? Marry, be honest, sweet lady. 
Was it not rather Messer Bembo who denied you Messer 
Bembo?” 

“ Will you have the names ? ” 

“ Hold a little. Here ’s matter black enough, but unsup- 
ported. I must have some proof. Tell me who ’s your 
informant ? ” 

“ And have you go and bleed him ? Nay, I am learning 
my tools.” 

“ Bravo! ” he said, and kissed his hand to her. “Well, I 
see, we must call a truce awhile.” 

“And I will keep the ring,” she said. 

He beamed thoughtfully on her. No doubt he was con- 
sidering the possibility of improving the interval by rooting 
out, on his own account, details of the secret she held from 
him. 

“Provisionally,” he said pleasantly — “provisionally, 
Madonna; so long as you undertake to make no use of it 
until you hear from me my decision.” 

“ The longer that is delayed, the better for your purpose, 
Messer,” she dared to say. 

He smiled blankly at her a little; then courteously 


184 


BEMBO 


advancing, and raising her hand, imprinted a fervent kiss 
on it. 

“ Though I fail to gather your meaning,” he said, “ it is 
nevertheless certain that you would make a very imposing 
Duchess, Monna Beatrice*” 


CHAPTER XVI 


** PATHER ABBOT, we thank you for your trust. We 
1 were less than human to abuse it. O, it flew with 
white wings to shelter in our bosom! Shall we be hawks to 
such a dove! Take comfort. It hath ruffled its feathers on 
our heart; it hath settled itself thereon, and hatched out a 
winged love. Pure spirit of the Holy Ghost, whence came 
it ? From a star, they say, born of some wedlock between 
earth and sky. I marvel you could part with it. I could 
never. . . . The pretty chuck! What angel heresies it 

dares! ' Marry,’ saith the dove, ‘ I have been discussing 
with Christ the subtleties of dogmatic definition, and I find 
he is no Christian. ’ This for intolerance! He finds honesty 
in schism — speaks with assurance of our Saviour, his dis- 
courses with Him by the brook, in the garden, under the 
trees — but doubtless you know. How can we refute such 
evidence, or need to? Alas! we are not on speaking terms 
with divinity. But we listen and observe; and we woo our 
winsome dove with pretty scarves and tabards embroidered 
by our fingers; and some day we too hope to hear the voices. 
Not yet; the earth clings to us; but he dusts it off. ‘ Make 
not beauty a passion, but passion a beauty,’ says he. ‘ Team 
that temperance is the true epicurism of life. The palate 
cloys on surfeit.’ O, we believe him, trust me! and never 
his pretty head is turned by our adoring. . . . ‘By love 

to make law unnecessary,’ — there runs his creed: the love 
of Nature’s truths — continence, sobriety, mate bound to 
mate like birds. Only our season’s life. He convinces us 

i8§ 


BEMBO 


1 86 

apace. Already Milan sweetens in the sun. We curb all 
licence, yield heat to reason, clean out many vanities; have 
our choirs of pure maidens in place of the Bacchidae — hymns, 
too, meet to woo Pan to Christ, of which I could serve thee 
an example. . . . All in all, we prepare for a great 

Feast of the Purification which, at the New Year’s begin- 
ning, is to symbolize our re-conversion to Nature’s straight 
religion. Then will be a rare market in doves — let us pray 
there be at least — which all, conscious of the true virgin 
heart, are to bring. Doves! Alack! which of us would 
not wish to be worthy to carry one that we know ? ’ ’ 

So wrote the Duchess of Milan to the Abbot of San Zeno, 
and he answered: 

“ Cherish my lamb. The fold yearns for him. He would 
leave it, despite us all. My daughter, be gracious to our 
little dreamer, for of such is the Kingdom of Heaven.” 

For years after it was become the dimmest of odd memories, 
men and women would recall, between laughter and tears, 
the strange little moral fantasia which, during a month or 
two of that glowing autumn of 1476, all Milan had been 
tickled into dancing to the pipe of a small shepherd of a New 
Arcadia. The measure had certainly seemed inspiring 
enough at the time — potential, original, weaving an earnest 
purpose with joy, revealing novel raptures of sensation in 
the seemliness of postures, which claimed to interpret Nature 
out of the very centre of her spiritual heart. David dancing 
before the ark must have exhibited just such an orderly 
abandonment as was displayed by these sober- rollicking 
Pantheists of the new cult. Grossness with them was sunk 
to an impossible discount. There was no market for gal- 
lantry, ipanchements^ or any billing and cooing whatever but 
of doves. Instead, there came into vogue intercourses be- 
tween Dioneus and Flammetta of sweet unbashful reason- 
ableness; high-junketings on chestnut- meal and honey; the 


A TALE OF ITALY 


187 


most engaging attentions, in the matter of grapes and sweet 
biscuits and infinite bon-bons, towards the little furred and 
feathered innocents of the countryside. That temperance 
really was, according to the angelic propagandist, the true 
epicurism, experience no less astonishing than agreeable 
came to prove. Then was the festival of beans and bacon in- 
stituted by some jaded palates. Charity and consideration 
rose on all sides in a night, like edible and nutritious fun- 
guess. From Hallowmas to Christmas there was scarce a 
sword whipped from its scabbard but reflection returned it. 
It was no longer, with Gregory and Balthazar, “ Sir, do you 
bite your thumb at me? Sir, the wall to you,” but “ Sir, I 
see your jostling of me was unavoidable; Sir, your courtesy 
turns my asps to roses.” Nature and the natural decencies 
were on all tongues; the licences of eye and ear and lip were 
rejected for abominations unpalatable to any taste more re- 
fined than yesterday’s. Modesty ruled the fashions and 
made of Imola an Ippolita, and of Aurelio an Augustine. 
The women, as a present result, were all on the side of 
Nature. Impudicity with them is never a cause but a conse- 
quence. They found an amazing attractiveness in the pretty 
dogma which rather encouraged than denounced in them the 
graceful arts of self- adornment. “ Naked, like the birds,” 
attested their little priest, “ do we come to inherit our King- 
dom. Shall we be more blamed than they for adapting to 
ourselves the plumages of that bright succession?” Only 
he pleaded for a perfect adaptation to conditions — to form, 
climate, environments, constitution. The lines of all true 
beauty, he declared, were such as both suggested and de- 
fended. Could monstrosities of head furniture, for instance, 
appeal to any but a monster ? Locks, thereat, were delivered 
from their fantastic convolutions, from their ropes of pearls, 
from their gold-dust and iris-powder, and were heaped or 
coiled di sua natura, as any girl, according to circum- 
stances, might naturally dispose of them. There was a 


i88 


BEMBO 


general holocaust of extravagances, with some talk of feed- 
ing the sacrifice with fuel of useless confessional boxes; and, 
in the meanwhile, the church took snuff and smiled, and 
the devil hid his tail in a reasonable pair of breeches, 
and endured all the inconveniences of sitting on it without 
a murmur. 

Alas! “How quick bright things come to confusion!*’ 
But the moment while it held gathered the force of an epoch; 
and no doubt much moral amendment was to derive from it. 
Intellect in a sweet presence makes a positive of an abstract 
argument; and when little Bembo asserted, in refutation of 
the agnostics, that man’s dual personality was proved by the 
fact of his abhorring in others the viciousnesses which his 
flesh condoned in himself, the statement was accepted for 
the dictum of an inspired saint. But his strength of the 
moment lay chiefly in his undeviating consistency with his 
own queer creed. He never swerved from his belief in the 
soul’s responsibility to its past, or of its commitment to a re- 
trogressive movement after death. “ We drop, fainting, out 
of the ranks in a desolate place,’’ he said. “ We come to, 
alone and abandoned. Shall we, poor mercenaries, repudiat- 
ing a selfish cause, not turn our faces to the loved home, far 
back, from which false hopes beguiled us? Be, then, our 
way as we have made it, whether by forbearance or rapine.” 
Again he would say: “ Take, so thy to-day be clean, no 
fearful thought for thy to-morrow, any more than for thy 
possible estrangement from thy friend. There is nothing to 
concern thee now (which is all that is) but thy reason, love, 
and justice of this moment. They are the faculty, devotion, 
and quality to which, blended, thy soul may trust itself for 
its fair continuance.” 

There were two little songs of his, very popular with the 
court gentlemen in these days of their regeneracy, which, as 
exemplifying the strengths and weaknesses of his propa- 
ganda, are here given. The first ran : 


A TALE OF ITALY 


189 


“ Somewhere there is a stream, I know, 
Whose bed no shade of death defiles, 
But continents of lilies blow 
Between the margins of its isles. 

“ Kterne, the honeyed air their food, 

Their candid texture night by night 
In dear angelic sleep renewed, 

They bloom unfading on the sight, 

“ Or take and give an endless dower. 
Where all eternity makes room. 

Miles upon myriad miles of flower — 
^ons of beauty and perfume. 

“ All round the turf with fruit is spilled 
For aching lips, like globes of fire. 
And love ’s from happy love distilled. 
And sin ’s unborn of gorged desire. 

‘‘There is not pain, nor thought of pain. 
Nor knowledge of one harsh decree ; 
But forces their sweet ends attain 
Through a commutual pliancy. 

“ Deep from a mist of wood and dawn 
The dryad calls like unseen bird ; 

And chuckle of sly-crouching faun 
In loops of rushy pools is heard. 

“ Roses, on softer bosoms laid — 

The perfect view, the perfect part : 
There maid is ever more a maid. 

Though passion melts upon her heart. 

“ Nor grief nor cry can enter by 
The margins of that dear estate, 
Whose bounds are all eternity — 

Man’s last inheritance from Fate, 

“ When in his soul the world be dead — 
That evil germ of sorrow and spite. 
Whose secret once discovered. 

Shall perish in the Infinite.” 


BEMBO 


190 

The second: 

** Here *s a comrade blithe 
To the wild wood hieth — 

Follow and find ! 

Loving both least and best, 

His love takes still a zest 

From the song-time of the wind, 

“ The chuckling birds they greet him, 

The does run forth to meet him — ‘ 

Follow and find ! 

Strange visions shalt thou see ; 

Learn lessons new to thee 

In the song-time of the wind. 

“ Couldst, then, the dear bird kill 
That kiss’d thee with her bill ? 

Follow and find 

How great, having strength, to spare 
That trusting Soft-and-fair 

In the song-time of the wind. 

** He is both God and Man ; 

He is both Christ and Pan — 

Follow and find 
How, in the lovely sense. 

All flesh being grass, wakes thence 

The song-time of the wind.” 

They were, I say, popular with the Lotharios. The nov- 
elty of this sort of renunciation tickled their sensoriums 
famously. It suggested a quite new and captivating form 
of self-indulgence, in the rapture to be gathered from an in- 
definite postponement of consummations. The sense of 
gallantry lies most in contemplation. I do not think it 
amounted to much more. Teresa and Blisabetta enjoyed 
their part in the serio-comic sport immensely, and were the 
most cuddlesome lambs, frisking unconscious under the 
faltering knife of the butcher. Madonna Caterina laughed 


A TALE OF ITALY 


191 

immoderately to see their great mercy-pleading eyes coquet- 
ting with the greatly- withheld blade. But then she had no 
bump of reverence. The little wretch disliked sanctity in 
any form; loved aggressiveness better than meekness; was 
always in her heart a little Amazonian terrier-bitch, full of 
fight and impudence. It might have gone crossly with 
Messer Bembo had she been in her adoptive mother’s posi- 
tion of trustee for him. 

But luckily, or most unluckily for the boy, he was in more 
accommodating hands. This was the acute period of his 
proselytizing. He had been persuaded back to court, and 
Bona had received him with moist eyes and open arms, and 
indeed a very yearning pathos of emotionalism, which had 
gathered a fataler influence from the contrition which in the 
first instance must be his. He had stood before her not so 
much rebuking as rebuked. Knowing her no longer saint, 
but only erring woman, it added a poignancy to his remorse 
that he had led her into further error by the abuse of her 
trust. She had answered his confession with a lovely abso- 
lution: 

‘ ‘ What is lost is lost. Thou art the faithfulest warrant 
of my true observance of my lord’s wishes. Only if thou 
abandon’ st me am I betrayed.” 

Could he do aught after this but love her, accept her, her 
fervor and her penitence, for a first factor in the crusade he 
had made his own ? And, while the soft enchantment held, 
no general could have wished a loyaler adjutant, or one more 
ready to first-example in herself the sacrifices he demanded. 
She abetted him, as she had promised, in all his tactics; 
lent the full force of an authority which his sweetness and 
modesty could by no means arrogate to himself, to compel 
the reforms he sang. She gave, amongst other gifts, her 
whole present soul to the righting of the wrong done to the 
girl Lucia and her father; and when all her efibrts to dis- 
cover the vanished Tassino had failed, and she, having sent 


192 


BEMBO 


on her own initiative a compensatory purse of gold to the 
blind armorer, had learned how Lucia had banged the gift 
and the door in the messenger’s face, was readily mollified 
by Bernardo’s tender remonstrance: “Ah, sweet Madonna! 
what gold can give her father eyes, or her child a name! ” 

“ What! it is born ? ” she murmured. 

“ I saw it yesterday,” said Bembo. “ It lay in her lap, 
like the billet that kills a woman’s heart.” 

And, indeed, he had not, because of his re-exaltation, 
ceased to visit his friends, or to go to occasional discussion 
with the crabbed Montano; whose moroseness, nevertheless, 
was petrifying. Yet had he even sought to interest the 
Duchess there; though, for once, without avail; for she 
dared not seem to lend her countenance to that banned, if 
injured, misanthrope. 

So she led the chorus to his soloing, and helped and 
mothered him with an infatuation beyond a mother’s. Like 
the Emperor’s jewelled nightingale, he was the sweetest bird 
to pet while his tricks were new. His voice entranced the 
echoes of those sombre chambers and blood-stained corridors. 
The castello was reconsecrated in his breath, and the miasma 
from its fearful pits dispelled. His lute was his psalter and 
psaltery in one: it interpreted him to others, and himself to 
himself. Its sob was his sorrow, and its joy his jubilance. 
He could coax from it wings to expression inexpressi- 
ble by speech alone. Here is one of his latest parables, or 
apologues, baldly running, as it appears, on the familiar 
theme, which, through that vehicle, he translated for his 
hearers into rapture: 

“ Down by a stream that muttered under ice — 

Winter’s thin wasted voice, straining for air — 

Lo ! Antique Pan, gnawing his grizzled beard. 

“ Chill was the earth, and all the sky one stone. 

The shrunk sedge shook with ague ; the wild duck, 
Squattering in snow, sent out a feeble cry. 


f 


A TALE OF ITALY 

lyike a stark root the black swan’s twisted neck 
Writhed in the bank. The hawk shook by the finch ; 
The stoat and rabbit shivered in one hole ; 

And Nature, moaning on a bedded drift, 

Cried for delivery from her travail : 

“ ‘ O Pan ! what dost thou ? I^ong the Spring ’s delayed ! 

O Pan ! hope sickens. See, where art thou gone ? ’ 

“ Thereat he heaved his brows ; saw the starved fields. 

The waste and horror of a world’s eclipse ; 

And all the wrong and all the pity of it 
Rushed from him in a roar : 

‘I’m passed, deposed : call on another Pan ! 

Call Christ — the Fates foretell him — he ’ll respond, 

I ’m old; grown impotent ; a toothless dog. 

New times, new blood ; the world forgets my voice. 

This Christ supplants me : call on him, I say. 

Whence comes he ? Whence, if not from off the streets ? 
Some coxcomb of the Schools, belike — some green, 
Anaemic, theoretic verderer. 

Shaping his wood-lore from the Herbary, 

And Nature from his brazen window-pots. 

The Fates these days have gone to live in town — 

Grown doctrinaires — forgot their rustic loves. 

Call on their latest nominee — call, call ! 

He ’ll ease thee of thy produce, bear it home. 

And in alembics test and recompose it. 

Call, in thine agony — loud— call on Christ : 

He ’ll hear maybe, and maybe understand ! ’ 

“ ‘ No Pan,’ she wailed : ‘ No other Pan than thou ! ’ 

“ ‘ What ! ’ roared he, mocking : “ Christ not understand ? 
Your loves, your lores, your secrets — will he not ? 

Not by his books be master of your heart ? 

Gods ! I am old. I speak but by the woods ; 

And often nowadays to rebel ears. 

He ’ll do you better : fold your fogs in bales ; 

Redeem your swamps ; sweep up your glowing leaves ; 
People his straight pastures with your broods ; 

3 


194 


BEMBO 


Shape you for man, to be his plain helpmeet ; 

No toys, no tricks, no mysteries, no sports — 

But sense and science, scorning smiles and tears.* 

“ Raging, he rose : A light broke on the snow : 

The ice upon the river cracked and spun : 

Long milky- ways of green and starry flowers 
Grew from the thaw ; the trees nipped forth in bud : 
The falcon sleeked the wren ; the stoat the hare ; 

And Nature with a cry delivered was. 

“ Pan stared : A naked child stood there before him. 
Warming a frozen robin in his hands. 

Shameless the boy was, fearless, white as milk ; 

No guile nor harm ; a sweet rogue in his eyes. 

And he looked up and smiled, and lisped a word : 

‘ Brother, thou take and cure him, make him well. 

Or teach me of thy lore his present needs.’ 

“ ‘ Brother ! ’ choked Pan. ‘ My father was a God. 

Who art thou ? ’ ‘ Nature’s baby,’ said the child. 

‘Man was my father ; and my name is Christ.’ 

“ He slid his hand within the woodman’s palm : 

‘ Dear elder brother ; guide me in thy steps. 

I bring no gift but love, no tricks but love’s — 

To make sweet flowers of frost — locked hearts unfold — 
The coney pledge the weasel in a kiss. 

Canst thou do these ? ’ ‘ No, by my beard,’ said Pan. 

“ Gaily the child laughed : ‘ Clever brother thou art ; 

Yet can I teach thee something.* ‘ All,’ said Pan. 

“ He groaned ; the child looked up ; flew to his arms : 

‘ O, by the womb that bore us both, do love me ! ’ 

“ A minute sped ; the river hushed its song ; 

The linnet eyed the falcon on its branch ; 

The bursting bud hung motionless — And Pan 
Gave out a cry ; ‘ New-rooted, not deposed ! 

Come, little Christ ! ’ So hand in hand they passed. 
Nature’s two children reconciled at last.” 


A TALE OF ITALY 


195 


And what about Messer Lanti and the fool Cicada during 
this period of their loved little saint’s apotheosis ? Were 
they more advocati diaboli than Bona? Alas! they were per- 
haps the only two, in all that volatile city, to accept him, 
with a steadfast and indomitable faith, at his true worth. 
There was no angelic attribute which Carlo, the honest 
blaspheming neophyte, would not have claimed for him — 
with blows, by choice; no rebuke, nor suggestion, nor ordi- 
nance issuing from his lips, which he would not accept and 
act upon, after the necessary little show of self-easing bluster. 
It was as comical as pathetic to observe the dear blunder- 
head’s blushing assumptions of offence, when naughtiness 
claimed his intimacy; his exaggerated relish of spring water; 
his stout upholding, on an empty stomach, of the aesthetic 
values of abstinence. But he made a practical virtue of his 
conversion, and was become frequent in evidence, with his 
strong arm and voice and influence, as a Paladin on behalf 
of the oppressed. He and Cicada were the boy’s bristling 
watch-dogs, mastiff and lurcher; and were even drawn, by 
that mutual sympathy, into a sort of scolding partnership, 
defensive and aggressive, which had for its aim the vindica- 
tion of their common love. There, at least, was some odd 
rough fruit of the reconciliation preached by little Bembo 
between the God-man and the man- Nature. Such a relation- 
ship had been impossible in the old days of taskmaster and 
clown. Now it was understood between them, without 
superfluous words, that each held the other responsible to 
him for his incorruptible fidelity to his trust, and himself for 
a sleepless attention to the duty tacitly and by implication 
assigned to be his. That is to say, Messer Carlo’s strength 
and long sword, and the other’s shrewd wit, were assumed, 
as it were, for the right and left bucklers to the little 
charioteer as he drove upon his foes. 

Carlo had a modest conception of his own abilities; yet 
once he made the mistake of appropriating to himself a duty 


196 


BEMBO 


— or he thought it one — rather appertaining to his fellow 
buckler. They had been, the Fool and himself, somewhat 
savagely making merry on the subject of Bona’s conversion 
— in the singleness of which, to be candid, they had not 
much faith — when his honest brain conceived the sudden 
necessity of bluntly warning the little Bernardino of the 
danger he was courting in playing with such fire. His 
charge, no sooner realized than acted upon, took the boy, so 
to speak, in the wind. Bembo gasped; and then counter- 
buffed with angelic fury: 

‘ ‘ Who sleeps with a taper in his bed invites his own de- 
struction ? Then wert thou sevenfold consumed, my Carlo. 
O, shame! she is my mother! ” 

“Nay, but by adoption,” stammered the other abashed. 

“ Her assumption of the name should suffice to spare her. 
O, thou pagan irreclaimable — right offspring of Vesta and 
the incestuous Saturn! Is this my ultimate profit of thee? 
Go hide thy face from innocence.” 

Tanti, thus bullied, turned dogged. 

“ I will hide nothing. Abuse my candor; spit on my love 
if thou wilt, it will endure for its own sake,” and he flung 
away in a rage. 

But he had better have deputed the Fool to a task needing 
diplomacy. Cicada laughed over his grievance when it was 
exploded upon him. 

“ Should’ St have warned Bona herself, rather,” he said. 

“How!” growled the other: “and been cashiered, or 
worse, for my pains ? ’ ’ 

“ Not while her lost ring stands against her; and thou, 
her private agent for its recovery.” 

“ True; from the mud.” 

“ Well, if thou think* St so.” 

“ Dost thou not ? ” 

“ Aye; for as mud is mud, Narcisso is Narcisso,** 

“ Narcisso! ” 


A TALE OF ITALY 


197 


He roared, and stared. 

“ Has he got it ? ” 

“ I do not say so.” 

” I will go carve the truth out of him.” 

” Or Monna Beatrice.” 

” What!” 

The great creature fairly gasped; then muttered, in a 
strangled voice: ” Why should she want it? What profit 
to her ? ’ ’ 

“ What, indeed ? ” whined the Fool. “ She fancies Messer 
Bembo too well to wish to injure him, or through him. Bona 
— does she not ? ’ ’ 

Carlo’s brow slowly blackened. 

” I will go to her,” he said suddenly. The Fool leapt to 
bar his way. 

‘‘You would do a foolish thing,” he said — ‘‘ with defer- 
ence, always with deference, Messer. This is my part. 
Leave it to me.” 

Carlo choked, and stood breathing. 

‘‘ Why,” said the Fool, ‘‘ these are the days ot circum- 
spection. God, says Propriety, made our hands and faces, 
and whatever else that is not visible was the devil’s work. 
You would be shown, by Monna Beatrice, for all her self- 
acknowledged parts, just clean hands and a smiling face. 
She conforms to fashion. For the rest, the devil will attend 
to his own secrets.” 

The other groaned: 

‘‘ I would I could fathom thee. I would I had the ring.” 

‘‘ I would thou hadst,” answered Cicada. ‘‘ ’T would be 
a good ring to set in our Duchess’s little nose, to persuade 
her from routling in consecrated ground: a juster weapon in 
thy hands than in some other’s. Well, be patient; I may 
obtain it for thee yet.” 

He meant, at least, to set his last wits to the task. Some- 
how, he was darkly and unshakably convinced, this same 


198 


BEMBO 


lyion ring was the pivot upon which all his darling’s for- 
tunes turned. That it was not really lost, but was being 
held concealed, by some jealous spirit or spirits, against the 
time most opportune for procuring the boy’s, and perhaps 
others’, destruction by its means, he felt sure. All Milan 
was not in one mind as to the disinterested motives of its 
Nathan. Tassino, Narcisso, the dowager of Casa Caprona, 
even the urbane Messer Ludovico himself, to name no others, 
could hardly be shown their personal profits in the move- 
ment. They might all, as the world’s ambitions went, 
be excused from coveting the stranger’s promotion. And 
there was no doubt that, at present, he was paramount in 
the eyes of the highest. That, in itself, was enough to 
make his sweet office the subject of much scepticism and 
blaspheming. 

Tough, wary work for the watch-dogs. Cicada pondered. 

That same evening he was walking in the streets, when 
a voice, Visconti’s, muttered alongside him: 

“Good Patch, hast been loyal so far to thy bargain. Hold 
it for thy soul’s sake. There are adders in Milan.’’ Then 
he bent closer, and whispered: “A word in thy ear: is the 
ring found yet ?” 

The Fool’s hard features did not twitch. He shook his 
head. 

“ Marry, sir,” answered he, as low, “ the mud is as close 
a confident as I. I have not heard of its babbling.” 

“So much the better,” murmured the other, and glided 
away. But he left Cicada thinking. 

“ It was not for them, then, the conspirators, that Narcisso 
stole it. And yet he stole it — that I ’ll be sworn. For 
whom ? Why, for Monna Beatrice. For why ? Why, for a 
purpose that I ’ll circumvent — when I guess it.” 

A passenger going by cursed him under his breath. The 
oath, profound and heartfelt, was really a psychologic note 
in the context of this history. Cicada heard it, and, looking 


A TALE OF ITALY 


199 

round, saw, to his amazement, the form of the very monster 
of his present deliberations. 

Narcisso, the rancorous mongrel, having snarled his 
hatred of an old associate, who, he verily believed, had once 
betrayed him, slouched, with a heavier vindictiveness, on his 
way. The Fool, inspired, skipped into cover, and peeped. 
He knew that the coward creature, once secure of his dis- 
tance, would turn round to sputter and glower. He was not 
wrong there, nor in his surmise that, finding him vanished, 
Narcisso would continue his road in reassurance of his fan- 
cied security. He saw him actually turn and glare; distin- 
guished, as plainly as though he heard it, the villainous oath 
with which the monster flounced again to his gait. And 
then, very cautiously, he came out of his hiding, and slunk 
in pursuit. 

It could serve, at least, no bad purpose, he thought, to 
track the beast to his lair; and, with infinite circumspection, 
he set himself to the task. 

It proved a simple one, after all — the more so as the animal, 
it appeared, was tenant in a very swarming warren, where 
concealment was easy. It was into a frowzy hole that, in 
the end, he saw him disappear — a tunnel, with a grating 
over it, like a sewer-trap. 

And so, satisfied and not satisfied he was turning away, 
when he was conscious in a moment of a face looking from 
the grating. 

A minute later, threading his path along a by-alley, he 
emerged upon a sweeter province of the town, and stood to 
disburden himself of a mighty breath. 

“ So ! ” he muttered: “ He is there, is he ! Well, the plot 
grows complicated.” 


CHAPTER XVII 


T here was a quarter of Milan into which the new light 
penetrated with some odd uncalculated effects. It was 
called, picturesquely enough, “The Vineyard,” and as 
such certainly produced a great quantity of full-blooded fruit. 
Vines that batten on carrion grow fat; and here was the ma- 
ture product of a soil so enriched. There was no disputing 
its appetizing quality. That derived from the procreant 
old days of paganism, before the germ of the first headache 
had flown out of Pandora’s box into a bung-hole. “ The 
Vineyard’s ” body yet owed to tradition, if centuries of adul- 
teration had demoralized its spirit. Still, altogether, it was 
faithfuller of the soil, self-consciously nearer to the old Na- 
ture, than was ever the extrinsic Guelph or Ghibelline that 
had usurped its kingdom. Wherefore, it seemed, it had 
elected to construe this new reactionism, this redintegratio 
amoris, this sudden much-acclaiming of Nature, into a spe- 
cial vindication of itself, its tastes, methods, and appetites, as 
representing the fundamental truth of things; and, ex conse- 
quenti, to appropriate Messer Bembo for its own particular 
champion and apologist. 

Alas, poor Parablist! There is always that awakening for 
an enlightened agitator in any democratic mission. Does he 
look for some comprehension by the Demos of the necessity 
of radical reform, his eyes will be painfully opened. The 
pruning, by its leave, shall never be among the suckers 
down by the root, but always among the lordly blossoms. 
Shall Spartacus once venture openly to stoop with his 

200 


A TALE OF ITALY 


201 


knife, he shall lose at a blow the popular suffrage. At a 
later date, Robespierre, who was not enlightened, had to 
subscribe to the misapplication of his own reforms, or be 
crushed by the demon he had raised. Here in Milan, “ The 
Vineyard” was the first to renounce its champion, when 
once it found itself to be intimately included in that cham- 
pion’s neo-Christianizing scheme. 

Alas, poor Parablist! Not Reason but Fanaticism is the 
convincing reformer! the bigot, not the saint, the effective 
drover of men. 

In the meanwhile “ The Vineyard ” swaggered and held 
itself a thought more brazenly than heretofore, on the 
strength of its visionary election. Always a clamorous 
rookery, one might have fancied at this time a certain increase 
in the boisterous obscenity of its note, as that might presage 
the fulfilment of some plan for its breaking out, and planting 
itself in new black colonies all over the city. But as certainly, 
if this were so, its illusionment was a very may-fly’s dance. 

Now as, on a noon of this late Autumn, we are brought to 
penetrate its intricacies, a certain symbolic fitness in its title 
may or may not occur to us. Supposing that it does, we 
will accept this Via Maladizione where we stand, this gorge 
of narrow high- flung tenements, looped between with festoons 
of glowing rags, for the supports and dead trailers of a gath- 
ered vintage. Below, the vats are full to brimming, and the 
merchants, of life and death forgathered in the markets. 
Half-way down the street a little degraded church suddenly 
spouts a friar, who, Punch-like, hammers out on the steps 
his rendering of the new nature, which is to remember its 
cash obligations to Christ, and so vanishes again in a clap 
of the door. A barber, shaving a customer in the open 
street, gapes and misses his stroke, thereby adding a trickle 
to the sum of the red harvest. Mendicants pause and grin; 
oaths rise and buzz on all sides, like dung-flies momentarily 
disturbed. And predominant throughout, the vintagers, the 


202 


BEMBO 


true natives of the soil, swarm and lounge and discuss, 
under a rent canopy, the chances of the season and its likely 
profits. 

Ivory and nut-brown are they all, these vintagers, with 
cheeks like burning leaves, and hair blue-black as grape- 
clusters, and eloquent animal eyes, and, in the women, co- 
pious bosoms half- veiled in tatters, like gourds swelling 
under dead foliage. But the milk that plumps these gourds 
is still of the primeval quality. Tessa’s passions are of the 
ancient dimensions, if her religion is of to-day. Her assault 
and surrender borrow nothing from convention. No billing 
and rhyming for her, with canzonarists and madrigalists 
under the lemon trees, in the days when the awnings are 
hung over to keep the young fruit from scorching; but 
rough pursuit, rather, and capture and fulfilment — all un- 
compromising. She is here to eat and drink and love, to 
enjoy and still propagate the fruits of her natural appetites. 
She does not, like Rosamonda, brush her teeth with crushed 
pearls; she whets and whitens them on a bone. She does 
not powder her hair with gold dust ; the sun bronzes it for 
her to the scalp. No spikenard and ambergris make her 
rags, or perfumed water her body, fragrant for her master’s 
mouthing. Yet is she desirable, and to know her is to taste 
something of the sweetness of the apple that wrought the first 
discord. She is still a child of Nature, though Messer 
Bembo’s creed surpasses her best understanding. She loves 
burnt almonds and barley-sugar, and crunches them joy- 
ously whenever some public festival gives her the chance; 
but the instincts of order and self-control are long vanished 
from the catagory of her qualities and she survives as she is 
more by virtue of her enforced than her voluntary absti- 
nences. For the rest, civilization — the civilization that 
always encompasses without touching, without even under- 
standing her — has made her morals a terror, and the morals 
of most of her comrades, male or female, of “ The Vineyard.” 


A TALE OF ITALY 


203 


It is, in fact, the sink of Milan, is this vineyard — a very 
low quarter indeed; and, it is to be feared, other red juice 
than grapes’ swells the profits from its vats. Here are to 
be found, and engaged, a rich selection of the tagliacantoni, 
the hired bravos who kill on a sliding scale of absolution, 
with fancy terms for the murder which allows no time for 
an act of contrition. Here the soldier of fortune, who has 
gambled away, with his sword and body-armor, the chances 
of an engagement to cut throats honestly, festers for a mid- 
night job, and countersigns with every vein he opens his 
own compact with the devil. Here the oligarchy of beggars 
has its headquarters, and composes its budgets of social 
’ taxation; and, here, finally, in the particular den of one 
Narcisso, desperado and ladrone, hides and shivers Messer 
Tassino, once a Duchess’s favorite. 

He does not know why he is hidden here, or for what pur- 
pose Messer Ludovico beguiled and threatened him from the 
more sympathetic custody of his friend Jacopo to deposit 
him in this foul burrow. But he feels himself in the grip of 
unknown forces, and he fears and shivers greatly. He is 
always shivering and snuffling is Messer Tassino; whining 
out, too, in rebellious moods, his pitiful resentments and 
hatreds. His little garish orbit is in its winter, and he cries 
vainly for the sun that had seemed once to claim him to her 
own warmth and greatness. He has heard of himself as 
renounced by her, condemned, and committed, on his detested 
rival’s warrant, to judgment by default. Yet, though it 
be to save his mean skin, he cannot muster the moral cour- 
age to come forth and right the wrong he has done. That, 
he knows would spell his last divorce from privilege; and he 
has not yet learned to despair. He had been so petted and 
caressed, and — and there are no lusty babies to be gathered 
from Messer Bembo’s eyes. At least, he believes and hopes 
not; and, in the meanwhile, he will lie close, and await de- 
velopments a little longer. 


204 


BEMBO 


Perhaps, after all, there is knowledge if little choice in his 
decision. He may be justified, of his experience, in being 
sceptical of the disinterestedness of spiritual emotionalism, 
or at least of the feminine capacity for accepting its appeal 
disinterestedly. But of this he is quite sure — that sancity 
itself shall not propitiate, by mere virtue of its incorrupti- 
bility, the woman it has scorned; and, in that certainty, and 
by reason of that experience, he nurses the hope of still pro- 
fiting by the revulsion of feeling which he foresees will occur 
in a certain high lady as a consequence of her rebuff. 

Still, however that may chance, he finds his present state 
intolerable. It is not so much its dull and filthy circum- 
stance that appals him, though that is noxious enough to a 
boudoir exquisite; it is the shadow of Messer I<udovico’s pur- 
pose, shapeless, indistinct, eternally conning him from the 
dark corners of his imagination, which takes the knees out 
of his soul. Is he really his friend and patron, as he pro- 
fesses to be ? He recalls, with a sick shudder, how once, 
when in the full- flood of his arrogance, he had dared to keep 
that smooth and accommodating prince waiting in an ante- 
room while he had his hair dressed. He, Tassino, the fun- 
gus of a night, had ventured to do this! What a fool he 
had been; yet how worse than his own folly is the dissimu- 
lation which can ignore for present profit so unforgettable an 
insult! It is not forgotten; it cannot be; yet, to all appear- 
ances, lyudovico now visits him, on the rare occasions when 
he does so, with the sole object of informing him, sympathet- 
ically, of the progress of Bona’s new infatuation. Why? 
He has not the wit to fathom. Only he has not so much 
faith in this disinterestedness as in the probability of its 
being a blind to some deadly policy. 

How he hates them all — the Duchess, the Prince, the 
whole world of courtly rascals who have flattered him out of 
his obscurity only to play with and destroy him ! If he can 
once escape from this trap, he will show them he can bite 


A TALE OF ITALY 


205 


their heels yet. But what hope is there of escaping while 
Ludovico holds the secret of the spring? Day after day 
finds him gnawing the bars, and whimpering out his spite 
and impotence. 

He has not failed, of course, to question his landlord Nar- 
cisso, or to weep over the futile result. Even if the little 
wretch’s tact and wit were less negligible quantities, there is 
that of crafty doggedness in his gaoler to baffle the shrewd- 
est questioner. Deciding that the man is in the paid confi- 
dence of the “forces,” Tassino soon desists from attempting 
to draw him, and vents on him instead his whole soul of 
vengeful and disappointed spite. 

Narcisso, for his part, offers himself quite submissively to 
the comedy; waits on him with a sniggering deference; 
stands while he eats; brings water, none the most fragrant, 
for him to dip his fingers in afterwards; dresses his hair 
with a broken comb, and takes his own dressing for pulling 
it with a grinning impassivity; lends, in short, his huge car- 
cass in every way to be the other’s butt and footstool. This 
exercise in overbearance is a certain relief to the prisoner; 
but, for all the rest, his time hangs deadly on his hands. 
There are no restrictions placed upon him. He is free to 
come and go — as he dares. His terror is held his sufflcient 
gaoler, and it sufflces. He never, in fact, puts his nose out- 
side the door, but contents himself, like the waspish little 
eremite he has become, with criticising and cursing from his 
solitary grille the limbs and lungs and life of the foetid world 
in which his later fortunes seem cast. So much for Messer 
Tassino ! 

One particular night saw him cowering before the caldano, 
or little domestic brazier, which must serve his present need 
in lieu of hotter memories ; for the season was chilling rap- 
idly, and what freshness had ever been in him was long 
since starved out. He was grown a little grimy and un- 
kempt in these days, and his clothes were stale. The room 


2o6 


BEMBO 


in which he sat was, in its meanness and squalor, quite 
typically Vineyardish. Its furniture was of the least and 
rudest; it had not so much as a solitary cupboard to hold a 
skeleton; it was as naked to inspection as honesty. That 
was its owner’s way. Narcisso was a very Dacoit in carry- 
ing all his simple harness on and about him. He cut his 
throats and his meat impartially with the same knife; or 
toasted, as he was doing now, slices of Bologna sausage on 
its point. His abortive scrap of a face puckered humor- 
ously, as the other, drawing his cloak tighter about him, 
damned the pitiful dimensions of their hearth. 

“ I would not curse the fire for its smallness, Messer,” he 
said. ‘ ‘ Wilt need all thy breath some day for blowing out 
a furnace.” 

Tassino wriggled and snarled : 

“ May ’ St think so, beast ; but I know myself damned as 
an unbaptized one, to no lower than the first circle of our 
Father Dante.” 

“Wert thou not baptized ? ” 

“Do I not say so? And, therefore, lacking that grace, 
exonerated.” 

“What’s that?” 

“ Not responsible for my acts, pig.” 

“ Who says so ?” 

“Dante.” 

“Who’s he? Has a’ been there? I would not believe 
him. What doth a’ say o’ me? ” 

‘ ‘ You f That you shall choke for all eternity in a river 
of blood.” 

“Anan ! ” said Narcisso, and blew, scowling, on his sau- 
sage, which had become ignited. “That’s neither sense 
nor justice, master. I kill by the decalogue, I do. Did I 
ever put out a man’s eyes for sport ? ” 

“It’s no matter,” answered Tassino. “Thou wert 
baptized.” 


A TALE OF ITALY 


207 


What will they do to thee ? ” 

“I shall be forbidden the Almighty’s countenance, no 
more — punishment enough, of course, for a person of taste ; 
but I must e’en make shift to do without.” 

“ It ’s not fair,” growled Narcisso. “ I had no hand in 
my own christening. Do without ? Narry penalty! n doing 
without what you’ve never asked nor wanted.” 

A figure that had stolen noiselessly into the room as the 5 r 
spoke, and was standing watching with its cloak caught to 
its face, sniggered, literally, in its sleeve. 

Tassino snapped rebelliously at the knife-point and began 
to eat without ceremony. 

“ Punishment enough,” he whined, “if it means such a 
life in death as this.” 

He sobbed and munched, quarrelling with his meat. 

‘ ‘ How canst thou understand ! The foul fiend betray 
him who condemned me to it ! That saint ; O, that saint ! 
If I could only once trip his soul by the heels!” 

“No need, my poor Tassino,” murmured a sympathetic 
voice; “ indeed, I think, there is no need.” 

The prisoner staggered from his stool, and stood shaking 
and gulping. 

“ Messer Ludovico 1 ” he gasped. “ How ” 

“ By the door, my child — plainly, by the door,” inter- 
rupted the Prince smoothly. And then he smiled: “Alas ! 
thou hast no ante- room here for the scotching of undesirable 
suitors. ’ ’ 

The terrified creature had not a word to say. One could 
almost hear his fat heart thumping. 

Ludovico, lowering his cloak a little, made an acrid face. 
The room offended his particular nostrils : its atmosphere 
was nothing less than sticky. But, reflecting on the choice 
moral of it, he looked at the little tarnished clinquant before 
him, and was content to endure. He even affected a pleas- 
ant envy. 


208 


BEMBO 


“ This is worth all the glamor of courts,” he said, waving 
his hand comprehensively. “ To eat, or lie down ; to go in 
or out as thou will ’st. Never to know that suspicion of 
thine own shadow on the wall. To waste no words in 
empty phrases, nor need the wealth to waste on empty 
show. What a rich atmosphere hath this untroubled, irre- 
sponsible freedom; it is a very meal of itself ! I would I 
2ould say. Forever rest and grow fat thereon; but, alas ! I 
bring discomforting news. My poor Tassino, I fear the for- 
tress at last shows signs of yielding.” 

The little wretch opposite him whimpered as if at a 
whip-cut. 

“Is it so indeed? Then, Messer Ludovico, it is a foul 
shame of her. She hath betrayed me — may God requite 
her! ” He snivelled like a grieved child; then, on a sudden 
thought, looked up, with a child’s cunning. “At least in 
that case I shall be forgotten. There can be no object in 
my hiding here longer. ’ ’ 

The Prince lifted his eyebrows, with an inward-drawn 
whistle. 

“Object? Object?” he protested, acting amazement. 
“ But more than ever, my poor simpleton. Thy case is 
double-damned thereby. Think you the other would rest 
on the thought of a rival, and such a rival, at large ? Thy 
very existence would be a menace to his guilty peace. I 
come, indeed as a friend to warn thee. Lie close; stir not 
out ; the very air hath knives. Be cautious, even of thy 
shadow on the wall, of thy hand in the dish.” 

He said it calmly and distinctly, looking towards Nar- 
cisso, who all this time had stood hunched in the back- 
ground, his dull brain struggling bewildered in a maze. 
But the urgency of this innuendo penetrated even him ; the 
more so when he saw Tassino leap and fling himself on his 
knees at the Prince’s feet. 

“ What do you mean ? ” shrieked the young man. “ Is 


A TALE OF ITALY 


209 

he in their pay ? O Messer, save me ! don ’ t let me be 
poisoned. ’ ’ 

He pawed and grovelled, looking madly over his shoulder. 
Ludovico laughed gently, disregarding him. 

“ Nay, I know not,” he cooed. “ It is a dog that serves 
more masters than one.” 

Narcisso slouched forward, and ducked a sort of obeisance 
between sullen and deferential. 

“What’s to-do?” he growled. “I serve my patron, 
Messer Duke’s son, like an honest man. What call, I say, 
to warn ’en of me ? Do I not earn my wages fairly ? ” 

“Scarcely, fellow,” murmured Ludovico — “unless to be- 
tray thine employer be fair.” 

Narcisso scowled and lowered. 

“ Betray ! ” he protested, but uneasily. “ That is a charge 
to be proved, Messer.” 

Ludovico suddenly leapt to a blaze. 

“Dog! Wouldst bandy with me, dog? Beware, I 
say! Who blabbed my secrets to the lady of Casa Cap- 
rona? ” 

He was himself again with the cry. His faculty of instant 
self-control was a thing quite fearful. Narcisso cowered 
before him; shrunk under the playful wagging of his finger. 

“Messer — in the Lord ’s name ! ” he could only stammer 
— “ Messer ! ” 

“ O thou fond knave ! ” complained the Prince, showing 
his teeth in a smile; “ to think to play that double game, 
one patron against another, and stake thine empty wits 
against the reckoning ! Well, thou art confessed and 
damned.” He drew back a pace. “ But one word more,” 
he said, raising his voice. “ What hast thou to plead that 
I call not up those that will silence forever thy false, treach- 
erous tongue ? ’ ’ 

He stood by the door. It was a very reasonable inference 
that he had not ventured into such a quarter unattended. 


14 


210 


BEMBO 


Narcisso stood gasping and intertwining his thick fingers, 
but he could find no words. 

“ What ! ” smiled Ludovico; “no excuse, no explanation? 
No answer of any kind ? Shall I call, then? ” He seemed 
to hesitate. “ Yet perhaps one loop-hole, though undeserved, 
I ’ll lease thee on condition.” He moved again forward a 
little, and spoke in a lower tone: “ There’s news wanted of 
a certain stolen ring. Dog ! do I not know who thieved it, 
and for whom ? Now shalt thou undertake to go yet once 
again, and, robbing the receiver, bring the spoil to me — or 
be damned here and now for thy villainy.” 

He thought he had netted at last the quarry of his long, 
patient stalking; but for once his confidence was at fault. 
Watching intently for the effect of his words, he grew con- 
scious of some change transfiguring, out of terror and aston- 
ishment, the face of his victim. Foul, ignoble, animal 
beyond redemption as that was in all its features, its swinish 
eyes could yet extract and emit, it seemed, from the thin, 
dead ashes of some ancient fire, a stubborn spark of self-re- 
nunciation. He could read it in them unmistakably. The 
man stood straight before him, for the first and only time in 
his life, a hero. 

Ludovico gazed in silence. He found, to do him the 
right justice, this psychic revelation of acuter interest to 
him than his own defeat foreseen in the light of it. But 
Tassino’s subdued whimpering jarred him out of his ab- 
straction. 

“Well, is it agreed?” he asked with a sigh. For the 
moment he almost shrunk in the apprehension of an afl5rma- 
tive reply. 

The rogue drew himself suddenly together. 

“ Call, Messer,” he said. “ That is my answer.” 

His chin dropped on his breast. Tassino uttered a cry, 
and hid his face in his hands. Not a word or apparent 
movement followed; but when, goaded by the fearful still- 


A TALE OF ITALY 


21 1 


ness, the two dared to look up once more, they found them- 
selves alone. 

Then, at that, Tassino shrieked and sprang to the grille. 

“My God ! “ he sobbed; “ he has gone, and left me to my 
fate ! “ 

He moved to escape by the door, but Narcisso caught 
and wrenched him back. 

“ What ails the fool ! “ he protested in his teeth. “ My 
orders be to keep, not kill thee, man ! ’ ^ 

Messer Ludovico, walking enveloped within a little cloud 
of adherents, smiled to himself on his way back to the 
palace. 

“ The fascination of the serpent,” mused he, shaking his 
head — ‘ ‘ the fascination of the serpent ! How could that 
crude organism be expected to resist the arts of our Lamia, 
when I myself could fall near swooning to them ? Hath 
he betrayed me to others ? I think not ; yet it were well 
to have him silenced betimes. The weakness was to 
threaten where I dared not yet perform. Yet it may 
chance, after all, he shall come to be prevailed on for the 
ring.” 

“ The ring ! ” he muttered, as he climbed presently to his 
chamber — “the ring! I think it comes to zone the world in 
my imagination ! ’ ’ 

As he was passing through the ante-room to his private 
closet, a draped and voiceless figure moved suddenly out of 
the shadows to accost him. He gave the faintest start, 
then offered his hand, and, without a word, ushered this 
strange ghost into his sanctum. The portiere swung back, 
the door clanged upon them, and there on the threshold he 
dwelt, looking with a silent, smiling inquisition into the 
eyes of his visitor. 

Hast thou ever seen the dead, leafy surface of a woodland 
pool stir, scarce perceptibly, to the movement of some secret 
thing below ? So, as Beatrice stood like a statue before the 


212 


BEMBO 


Prince, did the soul of her reveal itself to him, writhing 
somewhere under the surface of that still mask. 

Then suddenly, swiftly, passionately, she thrust out a 
hand. 

“There is the ring,” she said. “Do what you will 
with it.” 


CHAPTER XVIII. 



HAT same evening had witnessed, in the dower Casa 


X Caprona, the abortive finish to a venture long con- 
templated by its mistress, and at length, in a moment of 
desperation, dared. She had wrought herself, or been 
wrought at this last, into privately communicating to the 
little Saint Magistrate of Milan, how she had certain infor- 
mation where the ring lay, which if he would learn, he must 
follow the messenger to her house. She had claimed his ut- 
most confidence and secrecy, and, on that understanding 
alone, had procured herself an interview. And Bernardo 
had come, and he had gone — how, her tumbled hair, her 
self-bruised bosom, her abandonment to the utter shame 
and fury of her defeat, were eloquent witnesses. 

She had not been able to realize her own impotence to dis- 
arm an antagonist already half-demoralized, as she believed 
this one to be. For, before ever she had precipitated this 
end, gossip had been busy whispering to her how the saint 
was beginning to melt in the sun of adulation, to confess the 
man in the angel, to inform with more than filial devotion 
his attitude towards Bona. To have to cherish yet hate that 
thought had been her torture; to anticipate its consumma- 
tion her frenzy. She had known him first; he was hers by 
right. Eong wasting in the passion of her desire, she had 
conceived of its fruition a savor out of all proportion with 
her experiences. She must conquer him or die. He was 
hers, not Bona’s. 


213 


214 


BEMBO 


She had disciplined herself, in order to propitiate his pre- 
judices, into the enduring of a decent period of retirement. 
It must end at last. She never knew when Eudovico might 
exact from her that security, held by her conditionally only, 
against her ruin by him. For the present indeed she retained 
the ring, but any moment might see it claimed from her. 
Now, if she could only once lure, and overcome by its 
means, the object of her passion, the question of its restora- 
tion to, or use by another against, its owner, must necessarily 
cease of being an acute one with either her or Bernardo. 

With him, a.t least — with him, at least. And as for 
herself? 

Turning where she lay, she had seen her own insolent 
smile reflected from a mirror. 

“ He said,” she had whispered, pondering some words of 
lyudovico’s, '‘'‘More impossible things might happeyi.''' 

Then, taking the ring from her bosom, and apostrophizing 
its green sparkle softly: — 

‘ ‘ A little star — a little bribe, to win me both love and a 
throne ! ” she had said, and so had sunk back, closing her 
eyes and murmuring: — 

“ Tet it only prove its power here, and it and the heads of 
that conspiracy shall be all lyudovico’s. He will not claim 
the latter, I think, until their purpose is accomplished. 
And then ” 

And then Messer Ludovico himself had been announced. 

He visited her not infrequently in these days, though 
never, it seemed, with any purpose of foreclosing on that 
little mortgage of the ring. He came in the fashion of a 
confidential gossip, to enlighten her as to the doings of the 
world outside. They were very pleasant and intimate to- 
gether, with a hint, no more, of closer relations to come. 
The lion rolled in a silken net, and affected his subjuga- 
tion, as the lady affected not to notice the stealthy claws of 
her capture. It was a pretty little comedy^ which engaged 


A TALE OF ITALY 


215 


the sympathies of both, each according to its temperament. 
But it ended in tragedy. 

Ludovico had, indeed, no interest in dissuading his beau- 
tiful gossip’s mind from its tormenting suspicions as to the 
Messer Saint ’s gradual corruption by Bona; a scandal to 
which, no doubt — the wish in him being father to the 
thought — he himself gave ready credence. The report 
suited him in every way, both as to his policy and its instru- 
ments; and he only awaited its certain substantiation to let 
fly the bolt which was to involve three fortunes in one ruin 
— under warrant of the ring, if possible, but timely in any 
event. 

And in the meanwhile it afforded him, whether from jeal- 
ousy or pure love of mischief, some wicked gratification to 
nip and sting this already tormented lady in sensitive places, 
and to do it all under an affectation of the softest sympathy. 

Yet, while for his own purpose he hugged and fostered 
the slander, whose growth and j ustification he most desired, 
the slander itself, for some inexplicable reason, did not 
grow, but even began to exhibit signs, for a time almost im- 
perceptible, of attenuating. Ludovico could not acknowledge 
this fact to himself, or even consider it. It is difficult, no 
doubt, while we are calculating our probable gains, to admit 
the possibility of a blight in the harvest of our hopes. A 
fervid prospect blinds us to the road between; and this 
prince, for all his far-seeing, because of it rather, may have 
been less open to immediate impressions than some others 
about him. 

Yet, to souls less acute, there were the signs : the first 
little shadow of a smut on the ear — a hitch, just the faintest, 
in the ecstatic programme of Nature. Was it that Tassino, 
the mean worldling, was a true prophet of his parts, and 
that the reaction from a starved continence was already 
actually threatening ? Whispers there certainly were of a 
growing impatience of restrictions in the castello; of schisms 


2i6 


BEMBO 


from the pure creed of its little priest; of hankerings, even 
on the part of the highest, after the old fleshpots. They 
rose, and died down, and rose again. There was no melting 
a certain snow-child, it was said, into anything but ice water. 
The Duchess, who had somehow expected to gather flowers 
from frost, went about white and smiling, and chafing her 
hands as if they were numb. She had once stopped before 
a new young courtier, who bore some resemblance to a past 
favorite, and, while speaking to him kindly, had been seen 
to flush as though her cheeks had caught the sudden 
warmth of a distant fire. Madam Caterina, it was certain, 
waxing bold in impishness, had commiserated her mother 
on the bad cold she had caught. “ Madre mia,” she had 
said, “you have wandered too much in the chill woods, and 
would be better for a hot brick to your bed.” 

For such tittle-tattle was this after season of the sowing 
responsible, when, against all expectations, tares began to 
appear amidst the crops. Messer Ludovico, for his part, 
would recognize no sinister note in the laughter. It was 
just the rocking and babbling of empty vessels. Its justifi- 
cation in fact would not have suited his book at all ; and so 
he continued in confidence to plant his little shafts in ma- 
dam’s raw places. 

Monna Cat’rina, he had told her on the occasion of this par- 
ticular visit, had been very saucy to her mother the evening 
before, advising her, this cold weather, to make herself a 
coverlet of angel down. “ Whereat,” said he, “Madam our 
Duchess slapped the chit’s pink knuckles, answering, ‘Shall 
I wish him, then, to die of cold for me ? ’ to which Cather- 
ine replied : ‘ No ; for to die of love is not to die of cold ’ ” ; 
and the other had blushed and laughed, and turned away. 

And it had been this sting, thrust into the place of a long 
inflammation, which had finally goaded Beatrice into writing 
and sending her letter. 


A TALE OF ITALY 


217 


Vhnus and Adonis 

The days were beginning to darken early. It was the 
season when exotic flowers of passion luxuriate under glass, 
in that close coverture which is the very opposite to the 
law’s understanding of the term. 

Beatrice, like all tropical things, loved this time ; basked 
in the glow of tapers; hugged her own warm sweetness in 
the confldence of a sanctuary for ever besieged by, and for 
ever impervious to, the forces of cold and gloom. To fancy 
herself the desired of night, unattainable through all its 
storming, was a commanding ecstasy. She liked to hear 
the hail on the roof, trampling and threshing for an open- 
ing, and flinging away baffled. The muffled slam of the 
thunder was her lullaby; wfflile the candles shivered in it, 
she closed her eyes and dreamed. The thought of wrenched 
clouds, of crying human shapes, of torn beasts and birds 
sobbing and circling without the closed curtains of her 
shrine, served her imagination like a hymn. She measured 
her content against the strength of such helpless appeals, 
like a very nun of incontinence, shut from the rigor of the 
world within the scented oratory of her own worship. She 
was Venus Anno Domini, the Paphian goddess yet unde- 
throned, and yet justified of her influence over man and 
Nature. 

About her carven palace walls a thousand blossoming lilies brake ; 
Within^ a thousand years of love had wrought^ for utter beauty's sake^ 
Triumphs of art for her blue eyeSy and for her feet rich stainbd floors y 
And ever in her ears sweet moan of music down dim corridors '' 

Agapemone was her temple, and its inmost chamber 
her shrine. Here, under stained glass windows, ran a frieze 
in relievo of warm terra-cotta, thronged with little goat- 
faced satyrs pursuing nymphs through groves of pregnant 
vines. Here, supporting the frieze, were pilasters of blood- 
red porphyry, which burst high up into fronds of gold ; 
while, screening the interspaces on the walls, were panels of 


2I8 


BEMBO 


glowing tapestry relating the legend of Adonis, from his 
first budding on the enchanted tree to his final shrouding 
under the winter of love ’s grief. Here, also, the faces of 
dead Capronas, past lords of this House Beautiful, winked 
and gloated out of shadowy corners, whenever a log, 
toppling over on the hearth, sent up a shower of sparks. 
Prominent in one place was a tall massive clock, copper and 
brass, a chef-d' ceuvre of Dondi the horologist, which thudded 
the hours melodiously, like a chime of distant bells, and 
made the swooning senses in love with time. Couches 
there were everywhere, soft and wooing to the soul of lan- 
guor ; thick rugs and skins upon the marble floor ; tables 
with clawed legs, of chalcedony or jasper, on which were 
scattered in lovely wantonness a hundred toys of Elysium. 
Lutes, sweets, and goblets of rich repousse; wine in green 
flasks, and delicate long-stemmed glasses ; an ivory and sil- 
ver crucifix, half-hidden under a pile of raisins ; two love- 
birds in a gilded cage, and a golden salver containing an 
aspic of larks’ tongues, tilted upon a volume of some French 
Romaunt touching the knightly adventures of Messer Ro- 
land a troubadour — these and their like, varied or repeated, 
returned, in a thousandfold interest of color and sparkle, the 
soft investment of the tapers — enough, but not too many — 
in their beauty. One velvet cloth had been swept from its 
place, spilling upon a rug, where it sprawled unregarded, its 
costly burden of a begemmed chalice, a pair of perfumed 
gloves, and an illuminated volume of sonnets in a jewelled 
cover, dedicated to the goddess herself, and celebrating, in 
letters of gold and silver on vellum, her incomparable seduc- 
tions. She had pulled them over, no doubt, when she 
reached for the orange which now, untasted, filled her hand, 
soft and covetous as a child’s. 

The warmth and drowsy stillness of the room penetrated 
her as she lay holding it. Gradually her lids closed, her 
bare arm dropped from its sleeve, and the orange rolled on 


A TALE OF ITALY 


219 


the floor. Her thoughts and expectations had been already 
busy for an hour with “ Will he come ? Will he come ? Will 
he come ? ” It had been like counting sheep trotting through 
a hedge — one, two, three, four — up to a hundred — and now 
her drugged brain confused the tally, and she seemed to her- 
self to swerve all in a moment into a luminous mist. 

He entered like a pale scented flower into her dream — 
a soft and shapely thing, melting into its ecstasy, fulfilling 
its enchantment. She held him, and whispered to him: 
“The hour, sweet love! Is it mine at last ? ” — and, so mur- 
muring, stirred and opened her eyes. 

He was there, close by her, looking down upon her as she 
lay. How pale was his face, and how wistful. His walk 
through the icy dark had but just tinted it, as when No- 
vember flaws blow the snow from the rose’s dead cheek. He 
looked dispirited and tired. The childlike pathos of his 
eyes moved her heartstrings no less than did the red, com- 
bative swelling of his lips. She longed to master him in 
order to be mastered. Her hedonism’s highest moral 
attainment was always iu pleasing herself by surrendering 
herself to the pleasure of another; and how, knowing her- 
self, could she doubt the irresistible persuasiveness of her 
faith ? 

She did not speak for a little, the wine of slumber in her 
brain emboldening her in the meanwhile to dare this vision 
with her beauty, to seek her response in its eyes. Her 
cheeks, her half-closed lids, were, like a baby’s, flushed 
with sleep. Suddenly she stirred, and, smiling, and mur- 
muring, held out white arms to it: — 

‘ ‘ The hour thou sang’st to me! Bernardo, hast thou come 
to make that mine ? ” 

Hestoodasif stricken— white, dumfounded. She stretched 
her shoulders a little, and, raising her hands, put their rosy 
knuckles to her eyes ; and so relaxed all, and drooped. 

“I was dreaming,” she murmured. “I thought thou 


220 


BEMBO 


earnest to me and said : ‘ ‘ Beatrice, I will forego that heaven 
for thy sake. Give me the hour, to kiss and shame.” She 
stole a glance at him, and dropped her clasped hands to her 
lap, and hung her head. “And I answered,” she whis- 
pered, “ ‘ Take it, and make one woman happy.’ ” 

He gave a little cry. And then, suddenly, before he could 
move or speak, she had sat up swiftly, and whipped her 
arms about his neck, and pulled him to the couch beside 
her. 

“ Tisten,” she urged — “ nay, thou shalt not go. I hold 
thy weakness in a vice. Struggle, and I will tighten it. 
lyisten, child, while I tell thee a child’s tale. It is about a 
huntsman that followed a voice ; and he pushed into a 
thicket, and lo! enchantment seized him beyond. And he 
whispered amazed, ‘What is this?’ and the voice answered, 

‘ lyove — the end to all thy hunting.’ O ! little huntsman 
of Nature, be content. Thou hast traced the voice of thy 
long longing to its home.” 

She repaid his struggles with kisses, his wild protests 
with honeyed words. He set his pretty teeth at her, and 
she pouted her mouth to them; he hurled insult at her 
head, and she bore the sweet ache of it for the sake of the 
lips that bruised. When he desisted, exhausted, she would 
get in her soft pleas, rebuking him with a tearful meekness: — 
“Ay, scourge me, set thy teeth in me, only hate me not. 
Shalt find me but the tenderer, being whipped. Talk on of 
Nature. Is it not natural to want to be loved ; and, for a 
woman, in a woman’s way ? ” 

“ Forbear ! — O, wicked ! O, thou harlot ! ” he panted, still 
fighting with her. 

“ Tie still ! So a sick infant quarrels with its food,” she 
answered. “ O love— dear love, will you not hear reason ? ” 
“Reason!” he stormed. “ O, thou siren! to beguile 
me here on that lying pretext, and thus shame me for my 
trust ! ” 


A TALE OF ITALY 


221 


** No lie,” she pleaded. ” Thou shalt have the ring 
indeed.” 

” At thy price ? I will die first.” 

‘ ‘ Bernardo ! ’ ’ 

‘ ‘ Thou to talk of natural love ! False to it ; false to thy 
lord ; false even to thy stained bed ! Unhand me ! Why, I 
loathe thee.” 

“Not yet.” 

Her eyes were hot waters, all misted over with passion. 

” Thou canst not indeed, so pitiful to the worst. I cry to 
thee in my need. , I knew thee first. Bernardo ! will you 
forsake your friend ? ” 

” Friend!” 

” Ay. Only tell me what you would do with the ring ? ” 

” What but return it to her that trusted me with it? ” 

” And for what reward? — Nay, strive not.” 

‘ ‘ My conscience’s peace — -j ust that. Unclasp thy hands.” 

” See there ! Her gratitude would kill it in thee for 
ever. As would be hers to thee, so be thine to me. Art 
thou for a fall ? Fall soft, then, on my love. She will not 
let thee down so kindly, who hath a lord and duchy to 
consider.” 

He made a supreme effort — her robe tore in his hand — 
and, breaking from her, stood panting and disordered. She 
made no effort to recapture him, but, flinging herself to 
abandonment, sobbed and sighed. 

^‘O, lam undone ! Wilt thou forsake me? Kill me first I 
Nay, I will not let thee go I ” 

She sprang to her feet. He leapt away from her. 

” Beast I ” he cried,” that foulest our garden I I will have 
thee whipped out of Milan with a bow-string.” 

Scorn and hatred flashed into her face. She was no 
longer Venus, but Ashtoreth, the goddess of unclean frenzy. 

” Thou wilt ? ” she hissed. ” I thank thee for that warning. 
Go, sir, and claim thy -doxy to thy vengeance. She will 


222 


BEMBO 


leap, I promise thee, to that chance. Only, wouldst thou 
view the sport ” — she struck her naked bosom relentlessly — 
“ by this I advise thee — O, I advise thee like a lover ! — hide 
well in thy skirts — hide well. They will need to be thick 
and close to screen thee from a woman scorned. Wilt thou 
not go ? I have the ring, I tell thee — /, myself, no other, 
lyet her know. She ’ll bid thee pay the price perchance — too 
late. A fatal ring to thee. Why art thou lingering? I 
would not spare thee now, though thou knelt’ st and prayed 
to me with tears of blood.” 

She stood up rigid, her hands clenched, as, without 
another word, Bernardo turned, and, stalking with high 
head and glittering eyes, passed out of the room. 

But, the moment the door had closed upon him, she flung 
herself face downwards on the couch, writhing and choking 
and clutching at her throat. 

“ I must kill him,” she moaned ; I must kill my love ! ” 


CHAPTER XIX. 



HE hitch in the progress of the harvest came ever a 


little and a little more into evidence : the smut dark- 


ened on the ear ; the whisper of a threatened blight grew 
from vague to articulate — grew clearer, grew bolder — until, 
lo ! — all in a moment it was a definite voice. 

This happened on the morning succeeding Bernardo’s 
visit to the Casa Caprona — a visit of which, it would 
appear, the Duchess of Milan had been made somehow 
cognizant. 

Bona on this morning came into the hall of council, her 
white hand laid, as she walked, upon the shoulder of Messer 
Cecco Simonetta, the State Secretary. That light, caress- 
ing touch was an arresting one to some eyes observing it — 
Ludovico’s among the number. Its like, in that particular 
confidence and affection, had not been seen for many weeks 
— never, indeed, since the secretary had taken it upon him- 
self to caution his mistress on the subject of a perilous fancy. 
He would have had no wish to balk any whim of hers 
that turned on self-indulgence. It was this whim of self- 
renunciation which had alarmed him. There was a mood 
which might conceivably vindicate itself in the sacrifice 
of a kingdom to a sentiment. Such things had happened ; 
and saints were men. He would put it to her with all 
humility. 

And she had listened and answered icily: “ I thank thee, 
Messer Secretary. But our faith is commensurate with our 
purpose, which is to sweep out our house, not pull it down. 


224 


BEMBO 


What then ? Dread’st thou to be included in the scourings? 
Fear not. It is no part of our faith to forget our obligations. ’ ’ 

Which was a cruel response; but its hauteur silenced Mr. 
Secretary. And thenceforth he served in silence, watching, 
anxiously enough, the progress of this lady’s infatuation, 
and feeling at last immensely relieved when on this day her 
warm palm settled on his shoulder, melting the long frost 
between them. 

She looked rather wistfully into his worn eyes, and smiled 
a little tale without words of confidence restored. And he, 
for his part, spoke of no matters less commonplace than the 
State’s welfare. 

“The Duke will make Christmas with us. Madonna,” 
he said; “I have advices from him.” 

“He will be most welcome,” she answered, and her face 
colored with real pleasure. But the next moment it was 
like snow, and its vision hard crystals of frost. She had 
seen the Saint Magistrate advancing to accost her. 

There was a strange look in the boy’s eyes as they gazed, 
unflinchingly nevertheless, into hers — a look mingled of 
pain and doubt and fortitude. She had said no unkind 
word to him; yet a frost can nip without wind ; and surely 
here was a plant very sensitive to the human atmosphere. 
He questioned her face a little; then spoke out bold, though 
low — while Messer Tudovico, turning papers at the table, 
was very busy — watching. 

“Madonna, wilt thou walk apart? I am fain to crave 
thy private ear a moment. ’ ’ 

She stood like ice. 

“ Touching whose shortcomings now?” she asked aloud, 
and with a little cold laugh which disdained that implied 
confidence. 

He gazed at her steadily, though in trouble. 

“ Nay, I spoke of none. It is of moment. Madonna, I 
entreat thee.” 


A TALE OF ITALY 


225 


For an instant the milk of her sweetened to him. He was 
such a baby after all. And then she remembered whence 
he had lately come, and gall flooded her veins — gall not so 
much of jealousy, perhaps, as of contempt. Doubtless, she 
thought, he could have ventured himself into that hothouse 
in the Via Sforza with impunity, since, though spirit he 
might be, he was of that uninflammability that his virtue 
amounted to little better than the virtue of sexlessness. She 
felt almost glad, at last, to have this excuse for dissociating 
herself from a cause which had always chilled, and had 
ceased now for some time even to amuse her. 

Feel no surprise over the seeming suddenness of her re- 
volt. Apart from her position, this Duchess of Milan was 
never anything but a typical woman, common-souled, lack- 
ing spiritual sensitiveness, leaning to her masculine peers. 
Breeding was her business, and motherhood her passion. 
She took no more jar of offence from the intimate custody of 
babies than does a cat in licking open the eyes of its seven- 
days born. Her refinements were adventitious, an accident 
of her condition. She had felt it no outrage to her stately 
loveliness to yield it to Tassino’s usings. She had that 
Madonna like serenity of face which is the expression of an 
inviolable mindlessness; and no impressions other than 
physical could long pervade her. Stupidity is the rarest 
beauty-preserver ; and it is to be feared that Bona was 
stupid. 

Now, it is to be remembered that Bernardo had not men- 
tioned shortcomings at all; but, her object being to snub 
rather than answer him, she chose to take refuge in her 
sex’s prerogative of intuition. Dwelling a moment in a ris- 
ing temper, she suddenly flounced on him. 

“ If you will seek doubtful company, Messer, you must 
not cry out to have your fervor misread by it.” 

He was about to answer; but she stopped him peremp- 
torily. 


*5 


226 


BEMBO 


“ Women will be women, good or bad. We cannot pro- 
mote a civil war in Milan to avenge some pin-prick ta thy 
conscience. Indeed, sir, we weary a little of this precisian- 
ism. Is it come to be a sin to laugh, to warm our hands at a 
fire, to prefer fried collop to wafer? You must forgive us, 
like the angel that you are. We are human, after all, and 
pledged to human policies. Our State’s before the magis- 
tracy. There are things weightier to discuss than a mis- 
chief’s naughty word. We cannot hear you now.” 

She turned away, relenting but a little, though flushed 
and trembling. 

“ Come, brother,” she said. “ Shall we not pass to the 
order of the day ? ’ ’ 

lyudovico responded with smooth and smiling alacrity. 
One could never have guessed by his face the consterna- 
tion which had seized his soul. Yet, so cleverly had he 
hoodwinked himself, this sudden leap of light was near 
staggering him. Merriment and warmth and fried collops ? 
The charge in its utter, its laughable irrelevancy, was, he 
thought, a little hard on the saint, seeing how the gist of 
the new creed lay all in a natural enjoyment of life’s boun- 
ties. What powder had winged such a startling shot? — 
weariness ? — disenchantment ? — remorseful hankerings, per- 
haps, after a discarded suet pudding, which, after all, had 
been infinitely more native to this woman’s taste than the 
ethereal souffle, whose frothy prettiness had for the moment 
appealed to her meat-fed satiety ? 

The last, most probably. And, in that case 

His brain, through all the mazes of council, went tracing 
out a busy thread of self-policy. If this were really the end, 
he must hurry to foreclose on it ere the split widened into a 
gulf — before ever the first whisper of its opening reached 
Tassino’s ears. The time for temporizing was closed. 

“It touches, your Grace,” he purred, “ upon the reception 
to be accorded the envoys of Ferrara and Mantua.” 


A TALE OF ITALY 


227 


The wind of a fall, like the wind of an avalanche, runs 
before the body of it. Messer Bembo, passing out, amazed, 
from his rebuff, found in himself an illustration of this inev- 
itable human truism. All the envies, spites, and jealousies 
which his sweetness, under favor, had kept at bay, seemed 
now to gather in his path to hustle and insult him. 

“Good Master Nature,” mocked one, “hast ever a collop 
in thy pocket for a starved woodman ? ” 

‘ ‘ See how he stumbles, missing his leading strings ! ’ * 
cackled another. 

A third knocked off his bonnet. 

“ Prophesy, who is he that smote thee ! ” he cried, and, 
ducking, came up elsewhere. 

“Ay, prophesy ! ” thundered a fourth voice; and a fist 
like a rammer crashed upon the assailant’s face, spread- 
eagling it. The man went down in a welter. Bembo fled 
to Latin’s arms, feebly imprisoning them. 

“ Thou thing of bloody passions ! ” he shrieked. 
“ Wouldst thou so vindicate me? ” 

Carlo roared over his shoulder: 

“ Help his prophecy, ye vermin, when he ’s ears to hear; 
and tell him I wait to carve them from his head.” 

He bore Bembo with him from the hall, as he might carry 
a moth fluttering on his sleeve. Murmurs rose in his wake, 
seething and furious ; but he heeded them not. In a de- 
serted court beyond, he shook the pretty spoil from his arm, 
not roughly but with an air of madness, and stood breathing 
like a driven ox. 

“ What now ? ” he groaned at last — “what now ? ” 

Then all in a moment the boy was sobbing before him. 

“ O Carlo ! dear Carlo! I would the Duke were returned ! ” 
His grief and helplessness moved the other to a frenzy. 
His chest heaved, he caught at his throat, struggling vainly 
for utterance of the fears which had of late been tormenting 
him without definite reason. Seeing his state, Bernardo 


228 


BEMBO 


sought to propitiate it with a smile that trembled out of tears. 

“ Nay, mind me not — a child to cry at a shadow.’* 

lyanti choked, and found voice at length. 

“The Duke? Monstrous! Call’ st thou for him? For- 
get’ st Capello ? Art changed indeed.” 

“Alas 1 ” cried the boy, “no change in me. I think only 
of a more ruling tyranny than mine. Pitiless himself, he 
made pity sweet in others. I ’ve converted ’em from deeds 
to words, that ’s all.” 

“The Duke!” 

“ I begin to see. Thou warned’ st me, I remember. The 
fashion of me passes, like thy shoe’s long beaks. Yesterday 
they were a span ; to-day they’re shrunk by half ; to-morrow, 
mayhap, ye ’ll trim them from your feet and run on goat’s 
hooves.” 

“ Thou ravest. ’Tis for thee, being Duke-deputy, to 
trim 2^5.” 

“Into what? Cherubs or satyrs? Be quick^ lest the 
fashion change while you talk.” 

“ Go to ! Thou art the Duke, I say.” 

“ Well, a fine puppet, and great at righting wrongs. 
There ’s Tucia to witness.” 

“ She ’s provided for.” 

“ With bread. O, I am a very Mahomet. If I but nod 
my head, the city shall crack and crumble to it.” 

“ God ! What ails thee, boy ? ” 

“ Something mortal, I think. A breath withered me 
just now ! ” 

“A breath ? Whose breath ? ’ ’ 

“ Whose ? O Carlo, forgive me ! What have I said or 
done ? Look, I ’m myself again. It just fell like a frost in 
June, killing my young olives. I had so hung upon it, too 
— its help and promise. The harvest seemed so certain.” 

“Ah! She ’s thrown you over ? ” 

“ Dreams, dreams! ” sighed poor little Nathan; “ to live 


A TALE OF ITALY 


229 


on dreams — a deaf man’s voices, a blind man’s vision. I 
have seen such things, built such kingdoms out of dreams. 

Carlo, what have I done ? ” 

Lanti ground his teeth. 

“Done? Proved woman’s constancy a dream — that’s 
all.” 

He clapped his chest, and looked earnestly at Bembo, and 
cried in a broken voice : 

“ Boy — before God — tell me — thou hast not learned to 
desire her? ’ ’ 

The child looked up at him, with a pitiful mouth. 

“Ah! I know not what you mean; unless it be that pain 
with which I see her melt from out my dream when most 
possessing it.” 

“ Most ? She ? She to possess thy dream, thy purpose ? ” 
cried Lanti, and drew back in great emotion. 

“ She 2^ my purpose,” said the boy — “or was, alack! ” 

“ Is and was,” growled the other. “ Well, ’t is true that 
for the purpose of thy purpose / remain ; but then I don’t 
count. What am / to thee ? ” 

“ My love, beyond all women.” 

“ I am? That’s much. Now will we do without the 
Duchess.” 

“Alas!” 

“ Shall we not ? ” 

“ She hath so nursed my flock to pasture — the kind ewe- 
mother. The bell was about her neck. Now, it seems, she 
will have neither bell nor shepherd, and the flock must 
stray.” 

“ Hath she in truth cast thee ? On what pretext ? ” 

“Nay, I know not. It seemed the twin-brother of him 
that once she used for loving me.” 

“ Ay, it is their way. But scorn, for your part, to show 
caloric as she cools.” 

“Alas!” 


230 


BEMBO 


“ Trust me there. What had you said to chill her ? ” 

“ Nothing that I know, but to crave her ear a moment.’* 

“ It is the sink of slander in a woman — a pink shell with 
a dead fish inside. Yet thy whisper might have sweet- 
ened it.” 

“ Stung it, rather. Carlo, I know not what to do.” 

‘ ‘ Tell me. ’ ’ 

“ Shall I indeed ? I fear thee. Wilt thou be gentle ? ” 

“ As a lamb.” 

“ Well, then, I ’ll tell thee — I am so lost. Carlo, dear, I 
know where the ring is.” 

“ You do ? Do you see how calm I am ? Where is it ? ” 
” Beatrice hath it — thy Beatrice.” 

” You know that ? ” 

“ She sent to tell me — last night. God help me. Carlo, 
for a credulous fool ! ’ ’ 

“ You went to her ? Well ? ” 

‘ ‘ She would give it me. Carlo — O Carlo ! on such a con- 
dition ! ” 

‘ ‘ Which if you refused ? ’ ’ 

“ It shall be a fatal ring to me, she ended.” 

“Shall it? — or to her? Well, that’s said. And now, 
wilt thou go rest a little, sweetheart, while I think ? I can- 
not think in company.” 

“ I will go, but not to rest.” 

“ Pooh ! thy Fool shall drug thy folly with his greater.” 
“Alas ! he ’s gone.” 

“Gone?” 

“ He too. Nay, blaspheme not. He had his reasons.” 

“ For what?” 

“ For leaving me awhile. ‘ My folly starves on thine 
ambrosia,’ he said. ‘ I would fain feed it a little on human 
flesh.’ ” 

“ How long ’s he gone ? ” 

“ Some days.” 


A TALE OF ITALY 


231 


Let him keep out of my way when he returns.” 

“ I’ll not love you if you hurt him.” 

” Then I’ll not hurt him. Thy love is mine, and thy 
confidence, look you. This ring — speak not a word on it, 
to Bona or another, till I bid you.” 

“ Then I will not.” 

“ That ’s good. God rest you, sweetling.” 

He watched him go, with frowning eyes ; then, no mes- 
sage coming to him from the hall, strode off to his own 
quarters in the palace, and bided there all day. 

“ These women,” was the burden of his fury — “these 
women — soulless beasts ! To aim at winning heaven by 
debauching its angel! — there’s their morality in a nut- 
shell! But I ’ll send him back there first. So Beatrice hath 
the ring! What will she do with it ? What shall I with 
the knowledge ? God! if my wits could run with my rage ! 
To forestall her, else ” 

His fingers worked, as he tramped, on the jewelled hilt of 
his poniard. 

It was Messer Land’s misfortune that, in knocking down 
Bernardo’s assailant, he had defaced, literally as well as 
symbolically, the escutcheon of a powerful family. The 
fact was brought to the Duchess’s notice when, shortly after 
the event, she passed through the hall in company with her 
brother-in-law. Hoarse clamor of kinsman and partisans 
greeted her, backed, by way of red evidence, by the condi- 
tion of the victim himself. 

Her wrath and emotion knew no bounds. She flushed, 
and stamped, and wept, and in the midst collapsed. It was 
outrageous that her authority should be so defied (though, 
indeed, it had not been) by the brute creature of a creature 
of her lord’s. The Duke had never foreseen or intended 
such an arrogation of his prerogatives by his deputy. She 
would teach this swashbuckler a lesson. 


232 


BEMBO 


Then she broke down and turned, tearful, almost wring- 
ing her hands, to her brother-in-law. Sure never woman 
was cursed in such a false position — impotent and respon- 
sible in one. What should she do ? 

He took her aside. 

“ These two,” he said, “ are as j^et personcB grates with 
Galeazzo. At the same time thou canst not with decency 
or safety ignore the outrage. Seize and confine Messer 
Lanti out of harm’s way until the Duke’s return — just a 
formal and considerate detention, pending his decision. 
There ’s thy wise compromise, sister.” 

And so indeed it seemed. But undoubtedly the best wis- 
dom lay in his own adroit seizure of a fortuitous situation. 
He had wanted this Land out of the way; had foreseen 
him, as it were, lurking in the thickets far ahead through 
which his policy sought a road. Here was the fine oppor- 
tunity, and without risk to himself, to ambush the ambus- 
cado, and have it laid by the heels. 

Bona sobbed and fretted, nursing her grievance. 

‘ ‘ Why did this angel come to vex us with his heaven ? 
The world, I think, would be very well but for its schooling 
by saints and prophets. Children grow naughty under 
inquisition. There, have it as you will, brother ; use or 
abuse me — it is all one. It is my fate to be persecuted 
through my best intentions.” 

Ludovico put force on himself to linger a little and soothe 
her. His soul leapt with anxiety to be gone. To instruct 
Jacopo; to commission Tassino — to loose his long-straining 
bolt, in fact — here was the moment sprung inevitable upon 
him. He had no choice but to seize it ; and then — 

” Your Grace must excuse me,” he said at length, smil- 
ing. ” I have to go prepare against a journey.” 

“ A journey! ” she exclaimed, aghast. 

** Surely,” he answered mildly. ” The matter is insignifi- 
cant enough to have escaped your burdened memory; but 


A TALE OF ITALY 


233 


smaller souls must hold to their engagements. My brother 
Bari and I are to Christmas with the King of France in 
Tours. We sail from Genoa, whither, in a day or two, I 
must ride to join him. It is unfortunate, at this pass ; 
but ” 

“ Go, sir,” she broke in — “go. I see I am to be the 
scapegoat of all your policies,” and she hurried from him, 
weeping. 


CHAPTER XX 


M ore and more drearily the burden of his long days 
pressed upon Tassino. He was not built for heroic 
endurance; and to have to suffer Damocles’ fate without 
the feast was a very death-in-life to him. Here, in this 
dingy cabin, was no solace of wine to string his nerves ; no 
charm of lights to scare away bogies ; no outlook but upon 
beastliness and squalor. He seemed stranded on a mud- 
bank amidst the ebbing life of the city, and he despaired 
that the tide would ever turn and release him. 

Listening at his grille, he would often curse to hear 
the name of his hated rival — “ Bembo ! Bembe, Bambino ! ” 
sing out upon the swarming air. It was the rallying-cry of 
the new socialism, the popular catchword of the moment ; 
and he hugged himself in the thought of what it would spell 
to Galeazzo on his return, and by what racking and rending 
and stretching of necks he would mark his appreciation of 
its utterers’ enthusiasm. If the Duke would only come 
back! Here was the last of three who desired, it appeared, 
each for a very different reason, the re-installation of an ogre 
in his kingdom. 

But, in the meanwhile, he cowered in an endless appre- 
hension as to his own safety, which Ludovico’s last visit 
had certainly done nothing to reassure. On the contrary, it 
had but served to intensify the gloom of mystery in which 
he dwelt. He had since made sundry feeble-artful attempts 
to discover from Narcisso what secret attached to the ring, 
which, it appeared, that amiable peculator was accused of 

234 


A TALE OE ITALY 


235 


having filched, and why Messer Ludovico was so set on pos- 
sessing it. Needless to say, his efforts met with no success 
whatever; and the corrosion of a new suspicion was all that 
they added to his already palsied nerves. The sick flabbi- 
ness and demoralization of him grew positively pitiful, as 
he stood day after day at his grille, watching and moping 
and snivelling, and sometimes wishing he were dead. 

Well, the thicker the mud, the more productive the tide 
when it comes ; but he was fairly sunk to his neck before it 
floated him out. 

One day, gazing down, his attention, was attracted to a 
figure which had halted near below his coign of espial. As 
things went, there was nothing so remarkable in this figure, 
in its alien speech or apparel, as to make it arresting other- 
wise than by reason of its contiguity to himself. It was 
simply that of a crinkled hag, swart, snake-locked, cowled, 
her dress jingling with sequins, her right hand clawed upon 
a crutch. She appeared, in fact, just an old Levantine 
hoodie-crow, of the breed which was familiar enough to 
Milan in these cataclysmic days, when all sorts of queer, 
tragic fowl were being driven northwards from overseas be- 
fore a tidal wave of Islamism. For half Christendom was 
writhing at this time under the embroidered slipper of the 
Turk, while other half was fighting and scratching and 
backing within its ovm ranks, in a sauve qui pent from Sul- 
tan Mahomet’s ever nearer-resounding tread. 

From Bosnia and Servia and Hungary; from Negropont 
and the islands of the Greek Archipelago ; from new Rome 
itself, whose desolated houses and markets weeping Amas- 
tris had been emptied to repeople; from Trebizond and the 
Crimea, it came endlessly floating, this waste drift of palaces 
.and temples and' antique civilizations, which had been 
wrecked and scattered by that ruthless hate. Ruined mer- 
chants and traders; unfrocked satraps; priests of outlandish 
garb; girl derelicts blooded and defiled by janissaries ; 


236 


BEMBO 


childless mothers and motherless children — scared immi- 
grants all, they wailed and wandered in the towns, deno- 
uncing in their despair the creed whose jealousies and 
corruptions had delivered them to this pass. 

In the first of their coming, a certain indignant sympathy 
had helped to the practical amelioration of their bitter lot. 
Men scowled and muttered over the histories of their wrongs ; 
took warning for a possible overthrow of the entire Christian 
Church; talked big of sinking all difierences in a kingdom- 
wide crusade ; and, finally, fell to fisticuffs upon the question 
of a common commander for this problematic host. After 
which the immigrants, always flocking in thicker, and mak- 
ing civil difficulties, fell gradually subject to an indifference, 
not to say intolerance, which was at least half as great as 
that from which they had fled. Fashion, moreover, began 
to find in the Ser Mahomet a figure more and more attrac- 
tive, in proportion as he approached it, issuing from the mists 
of the Orient. It was ravished with, if it did not want to be 
ravished by, those adorable Spahis, with their tinkling jack- 
ets and sashes and melancholy, wicked faces. It adapted 
prettily to itself the caftan, and the curdee, and the turban; 
re-read Messer Boccaccio’s most Eastern fables ; acted them, 
too, in drawers of rose-colored damask, and little talpoes, 
which were tiny jewelled caps of velvet, cocked, and falling 
over one ear in a tassel. But by that time the cult of immi- 
grancy was discredited du haut en bas. 

Many of the unhappy wretches were drawn by natural 
process into such sinks as “ The Vineyard.” The poor are 
good to the poor, and pitiful — which is strange — towards 
any fall from prosperity. In the instance of this old woman, 
it was notable how she was humored of the drifting popu- 
lace. The very ladroni, who, outside their own rookery, 
might have tormented and soused her in the kennel, were 
content here to rally and banter her a little, showing their 
white teeth to one another in jokes whose bent she was none 


A TALE OF ITALY 


237 


the worse for misapprehending. For she had not much 
Italian, it appeared; though what was hers .she was turning 
to the best possible advantage in the matter of fortune-telling. 

Tassino saw many brawny palms thrust out for her shrewd 
conning; echoed from his eyrie many of the Eccomi perdHtos 
and O mt bedtos which greeted her broken sallies. She 
got a mite here and there, and buzzed and mumbled over it, 
clutching it to her lean bosom. Presently some distraction, 
of rape or murder, carried her audience elsewhere, and she 
was left temporarily alone. Then Tassino, moved by a sud- 
den impulse, reached down his arm through the grate and 
tapped her reverend crown. She started, and ducked, and 
peered up. lie whispered out to her: 

‘ ‘ Zitto, old mother ! Come up here, and tell me my for- 
tune for money.” 

She seemed to hesitate ; he signified the way; and lo ! on 
a thought she came. He met her at the door, and dragged 
her in. 

“Tell me my fortune,” he said, and thrust out a dirty 
palm. 

She pored over it, chuckling and pattering her little in- 
comprehensible shibboleth. Presently she seemed to pounce 
triumphantly on a knot. She leered up, her hand still 
clutching his, her hair falling over her eyes. 

“ Ah-yah! ” she muttered. “ Ringa, ringa ! ” and shook 
her head. 

He shrugged peevishly: — 

“ What do you mean, old hag? ” 

“ Ringa ! ” she repeated : “ no ringa, no fortuna.” 

He snatched his hand away. 

“ What ring, thou cursed harridan ? ” 

She shook her head again. 

“ No know. Ringa — I see it— -green cat-stone— hold off 
Fortuna. Get, and she change.” 

He gnawed his lip, frowning and wondering. There was a 


238 


BEMBO 


ring in question, certainly. Could it be possible its posses- 
sion was connected somehow with his personal fortunes ? If 
that were so, here was a veritable Pythoness. 

Her eyes stared daemonic; she thrust out a finger, 
pointing : 

“ I see, there : green cat-stone : get, and Fortuna change.” 

Superstition mastered him. He trembled before her, 
quavering : 

“ How can I ? O mother ! how can I ? ” 

A voice in the street startled him. He leapt to the win- 
dow and back again. 

“ Narcisso ! ” he gasped, and ran to bundle out his visitor. 

“To-morrow — come again to-morrow — after dark,” he 
whispered hurriedly. ‘ ‘ I shall be alone — I will pay you — ’ ’ 
and he drove her forth. Narcisso met her, issuing from the 
court below. He growled out a malediction, and came 
growling into the room. 

“ You keep nice company, Messer.” 

“ That is not my fault, beast,” answered Tassino pertly. 
“ When I choose my own, it is to amuse myself.” 

“ Well, I hope she amused you ? ” 

“ Not so much as I expected. I saw her telling fortunes 
down below, and called her up to read me mine. Acquaint 
me of the mystery of a certain ring I asked her ; but, oim^! 
she could enlighten me nothing.” 

Narcisso leered at him cunningly, and spat. 

“It was as well, perhaps. I see th’ art set upon that im- 
pertinence ; and I ’ll only say again,* beware ! ’ ” 

“ You may say what you like, old yard-dog,” answered the 
youth. “ It ’s your business, chained up here, to snarl.” 

But his fat brain was busy all night with the weird Hecate 
and her necromancy. What did this same ring portend to 
him, and how was his fate involved in its possession? 
There was a ring in question, doubtless, but whose ? Then, 
all in an amazed moment inspiration flashed upon him. A 


A TALE OF ITALY 


239 


green cat-stone ! Had he not often seen such a rin^ on 
Bona’s finger? It might, indeed, be the Duchess’s own 
troth-ring ! 

He shrunk and cowered at first in the thought of the 
issues involved in such a possibility. Was it credible that 
it had been stolen from her? How could he tell, who had 
been imprisoned here so long ? Only, if it were true that it 
had been, and he, Tassino, could secure it from whatever 
ravisher, what a weapon indeed it might be made to prove 
in his hand ! 

He exulted in that dream of retribution ; had almost con- 
vinced himself by morning that its realization lay within his 
near grasp. She, that old soothsayer, could surely show 
him the way to possess himself of what her art had so easily 
revealed to him for his fortune’s talisman. This Eastern 
magic was a strange and terrible thing. He would pay her 
all he had for the secret! — make crawling love to her, if 
necessary. 

All day he was in a simmer of agitated expectancy; and 
when dusk at last gathered and swelled he welcomed it as 
he had never done before. Fortunately Narcisso went out 
early, and need not be expected back betimes. He was en- 
gaged, the morrow being the feast of the Conception, to 
confess and prepare to communicate himself fasting from 
midnight; and it was a matter of religion with him on such 
occasions to take in an especial cargo against the ordeal. 
Before the streets were dark, Tassino was sitting alone ; and 
so he sat, shuddering and listening, for another hour. 

A step at last on the shallow stair! He held his breath. 
No, he was deceived. Sweating, on tiptoe, he stole to the 
door and peered out. All was silent, and dark as pitch. 
Then suddenly, while he looked, there came a muffled 
tramp and shuffle in the street, and on the instant a 
figure rose from the well of blackness below mounting 
swiftly towards his door. He had barely time to retreat 


240 


BEMBO 


into the unlighted room before he felt his visitor upon 
him. 

“ My God! ” he quavered; “ who is it ? Keep away! ” and 
he backed in ghastly fear to the wall. 

‘ ‘ Hush ! ’ ’ (Ludovico’ s voice. ) ‘ ‘ Are you alone ? ’ ’ 

The frightened wretch stole forward a step. 

“ Messer ! I thought you ” 

Never mind,” interrupted the other impatiently. “An- 
swer me.” 

“ Quite alone.” 

“ Humph ! I thought you loved the dark less.” 

“ I — I was about to light the tapers; I swear I was. Wait 
only one moment, Messer.” 

“Stop. No need. The night’s the better confidant. 
Come here.” 

Trembling all through, Tassino obeyed. A smooth hand 
groped, and fastening on his wrist, pressed a hard, round 
object into his palm. He had much ado not to shriek out. 

“ What ’s this ? ” he gasped. 

“ Be silent. Have you got it? Put it where it ’s secure. 
Well ? ” 

“ ’T is in the scabbard of my knife, Messer — ” (the blade 
clicked home). 

“ A good place ; keep it there. Now, listen. There ’s no 
other here ? ’ ’ 

“ On my oath, no.” 

“ Nor on the stair? ” 

“ How can there be, between us and Messer’s gentlemen ? ” 

“Hark well, then. Thy life depends on it. They’ve 
wind of thee, Tassino.” 

“ O, O! God pity me! 

“ He helps those — you know the saw. ’T is touch and 
go — come to this at last ; either they destroy you, or you — 
them.” 

“How? O, I shall die! ” 


A TALE OF ITALY 


241 


‘‘ Wilt thou, then ? Well, then, if thou wilt. Yet not so 
much as thy ear-lobe’s spark of nerve were needed to fore- 
stall and turn the tables on them. They are very fond 
together, Tassino.” 

“ Curse them! If I could stab him in the back! ” 

“Well, why not ? Thy scabbard holds the means.’* 

“ My dagger? ” 

“ Better.” 

“What?” 

“ The Duchess’s troth-ring.” 

“ Messer! My God!” 

He leapt as if a trigger had clicked at him. Here was to 
have the gipsy’s prophecy, his own fulsome hope, realized at 
a flash; but with what fearful significances for himself. So 
this had actually been the ring of contention, and se- 
cured at last — he might have known it would be — by 
Ludovico. 

He gave an absurd little shaky laugh, desperately playful. 

“ How am I to stab with a ring, Messer? ” 

“ Fool! answer for thyself.” 

He was crushed immediately. 

‘ ‘ By carrying it to the Duke ? ” he whispered fearfully. 

“It is thy suggestion,” said Ludovico not for me to 
traverse. Well?” 

“Ah! help me, Messer, for the Lord’s sake. I turn in a 
maze.” 

The Prince’s thin mouth creased in the dark. 

“ Nay, ’t is no affair of mine,” he said. “ I am but 
friendship’s deputy.” 

Tassino almost whimpered, writhing about in helpless 
protest. 

“ He will thunder at me, ‘ Whence reaches me this? ’ ” 

“Likely.” 

‘ ‘ What shall I reply then ? ’ ’ 

“ Do you put the case hypothetically? I should answer 


242 


BEMBO 


broadly, on its merits, somehow as follows : ‘ By the right 

round of intrigue, O Duke, completing love’s cycle.’ 

“ O Messer! How am I to understand you? ” 

“Why, easily — (I speak as one disinterested). Call it 
the cycle of the ring, and thus it runs : From the husband to 
the Tjoife; from the wife to her paramour; from the paramour 
to his doxy; from the doxy back to the husband. ’ ’ 

“ His doxy ? O beast! Hath he a second ? ” 

“ Or had. I go by report, which says — but then I’m no 
scandalmonger — that a certain lady, Caprona’s widow, finds 
herself scorned of late.” 

‘ ‘ And it comes from her — to me ? For what ? To destroy 
them both ? ’ ’ 

“ A shrewd suggestion. In that case your moods run 
together.” 

“ Monna Beatrice! She sends it ? ” 

‘ • Does she ? Quote me not for it. It were ill so to re- 
quite my over-fond friendship. Thou hast the ring. I wish 
thee well with it. Dost mark? ” 

“ I mark, Messer.” 

“ Why, so. Thou shouldst suffer after-remorse, having 
dragged in my name ; and there is hellbane, so they tell me, 
in remorse.” 

‘ ‘ I will die before I mention thee in it. ’ ’ 

“ Well, I can trust the grave. That’s to know a friend. 
So might I add something to thy credentials.” 

“ If it please you, Messer.” 

“ Why, look you, child, love may very well have its pro- 
curer — say a State Secretary, where love is of high standing. 
And thence may follow the subversion of a State. There ’s 
a pretender in Milan, they tell me, something an idol of the 
people — I know not. Only this I ponder: What if there be, 
and he that same idol which the Duchess is reported to have 
raised ? Would Simonetta, in such case, join in the hymn of 
praise ? One might foresee, if he did, a trinity very strong 


A TALE OF ITALY 


243 


in the public worship. His Grace, I can’t help thinking, 
would find himself de trop here at present. You might put 
it to him — your own way. When will you set out ? ” 

“When?” 

“This moment, I’d advise. To-morrow might mean 
never. The Duke ’s at Vigevano — less than six leagues 
away. A good horse might carry thee there by morning. 
I ’ve such a one in my stables. He’ll honor thee for this 
service, trust me.” 

Tassino’s little soul spirted into flame. 

“ Viva il duca ” he piped, and ran to the door. 

He drove it before him — it opened outwards — and descend- 
ing the dark stairs with his patron, passed into the night. 

An hour later he was spurring for Vigevano, while the 
Prince was engaged in preparing against his own journey to 
Genoa on the morrow. 


CHAPTER XXI 


C ARLO kept his room all day, gnawing and tramping 
out his problem, and extracting nothing from it. 
Not till it was deep dark did he call for lights, and 
then he cursed his page, Krcole, who brought them, 
because they dazzled his brain from thinking. Swerving 
on his heel, he was in the act of bidding the boy let 
no one enter, unless it might be Messer Bembo, when, 
the door being ajar, there hurried into the chamber 
the figure of a fantastic hag, who, upon noting his com- 
pany, stopped suddenly, and stood mumbling and sawing 
the air. 

“ Begone ! ” he roared, astounded, and took a furious step 
towards her. 

She laughed harshly. His clinched fists dropped to his 
sides. There was no mistaking the bitter cackle. He flung 
his arm to the page, dismissing him. 

The moment the door was shut upon them, off went the 
cloak and sequins, off went the hood and snaky locks, and 
the Fool Cicada, clean and lithe in a tight suit of jarnsey, 
stood revealed. 

Carlo leapt upon him, mouthing. 

“What mummery, beast, and at such a time? Wait 
while I choke thee.” 

In the tumult of his fury he remembered his promise to 
Bernardo, and fell back, breathing. 

“ Hast finished?” said Cicada, acrid and unmoved. “ I 
244 


A TALE OF ITALY 


245 

could retort upon a fool but for lacking time. Where 's the 
boy?” 

“ Renegade! What concerns it thee to know ? ” 

“ I say, where’s the boy ? ” 

“ If I might trounce thee! Safe, at present, no thanks to 
thee.” 

“ Have I asked any ? You must take horse and ride after 
the ring.” 

“The ring!” 

‘ ‘ I warn thee, lose not a moment. It may be even now 
upon the road.” 

“The road!” 

“ That echo ’s a scrivener. Say after me thus, word for 
word, so thy skull shall keep the record: The ring goes this 
moment to the Duke at VigevanOy in false witness againt our 
Saint. Narcisso gave it to BeatricOy Beatrice to LudoviCy Ludo- 
vie to Tassino — and Tassino carries ity wrapped round with 
fifty damning lies. Can you fill in the rest ? ” 

“ My God ! How know you this ? ” 

“ I know. Why have I been mumming else ? ” 

“ O, thou good Fool! ” 

“ So beatified in a moment! But stay not. To horse, and 
after, or by luck in front of, this ill-omened popinjay. He 
must be anticipated, overreached, despoiled, poniarded — 
anything. I ’ve had my ear to his door — it smarts yet — 
Ludovic was with him. I was before the Prince and heard 
him coming — ‘trapped!’ I thought. But the fool looked 
out — door opens to the stairs — and shut me into its angle 
against the wall. So again when they left together, and I 
slipped away behind their worships, and presently ran be- 
fore. There you’ve the tale. And so, a’ God’s name 
mount and spur, for a minute’s delay may kill all. But sith 
even now it be too late, why, run after to traverse that foul 
evidence, and the Lord speed thee. Remember — Tassino 
and the Vigevano road.” 


246 


BEMBO 


Stunning, bewildering as was the nature of this blast, it 
served to clear Carlo’s brain as a southerly wind clears stag- 
nant water. It meant action, and in action lay his mitier. 
Prompt and comprehensive instantly, now that the sum of 
things had been worked out for him, he dwelt but on the 
utterance of a single curse — so black and monstrous that the 
candle-flames seemed to duck to it — before he turned and 
strode heavily from the room. 

“ Mercy ! ” muttered Cicada, tingling where he stood ; “ if 
Monna Beatrice isn’t blinking smut out of her eyes at this 
very moment, there’s no virtue in Hell.” 

Ten minutes later. Carlo, booted, spurred, and cloaked, 
issued hurriedly from his quarters, and made for a postern 
in the north wall, on t’ other side of which Brcole, so he had 
sped his errand well, should be already in waiting with the 
cavalier’s horse, “1’ Inferno,” saddled and bridled for the 
hunt. 

A thin muffle of snow lay on the pavements, choking echo; 
a thin, still fog, wreathing upwards from it, made everything 
loom fantastic — curtains, towers, the high battlemented 
spectres of the sentries. 

He clapped his hand to his hip, in assurance of the 
firm hilt there, and was clearing his throat to answer the 
guard’s challenge, when, on the moment, a whisk of 
sudden light seemed to overtake and pass him, and he 
whipped about, with a' catch in his breath, to face an ex- 
pected onset. 

Nothing was there. Only the ghosts of mist and snow 
peopled the ward he had traversed; but, across it, licking 
and leaping from a high window in the Armorer’s Tower, 
spat a tongue of flame. 

He dwelt a moment, fascinated. Faint cries and hurried 
warnings reached him. The flame shrunk, broke from its 
curb, and writhed out again. 

“ Galeazzo’s room! ” he muttered; “a red portent to greet 


A TALE OF ITALY 


247 

him !’^ and, turning to pursue his way— ran into a vice of 
arms and was in a moment a prisoner. 

The shock was so stunning, that he found himself bound 
and helpless before he could realize its import. And then 
he roared out like a lassoed bull: 

“Dogs! What’s this?” 

The Provost Marshal answered him, waving aside his 
capturing sbirri. 

“ Her Grace’s warrant, Messer.” 

Lanterns seemed to have sprung like funguses from the 
ground, grossly multiplying the strong company that sur- 
rounded him. He stared about him bewildered; then, all in 
an instant, drove forward like a battering-ram. There was 
a clash of pikes and mail ; an arquebus exploded, luckily 
without disaster ; and Carlo was down in a writhe of men, 
pounding with his heels. 

It brought him nothing but a full interest of bruises. 
Shortly he was on his feet again, torn and dishevelled ; 
but this time with a thong about his ankles. 

He found wisdom of his helplessness to temporize. 

“ Save thee, Provost Marshal, I have an important errand 
toward. Spare me to it, and I ’ll give my parole to deliver 
up my person to thee on my return.” 

The dummy wagged aside the appeal, woodenly. 

“ I ’ve my orders.” 

Carlo lost his brief command of temper. 

“ Swine! To truss me like a thief? ” 

“ To hold thy person secure, Messer.” 

“ With ropes, dog?” 

“ I ’ll unbind them on that same parole.” 

For all answer. Carlo dropped and rolled on the ground, 
bellowing curses and defiance. It was childish; but then, 
what was the great creature but a child? Despair divorced 
from seaon finds its last resource in kicking; and strength 
of body was always this poor fellow’s convincing argument. 


248 


BEMBO 


The presumption that, by his own impulsive retort on Ber- 
nardo’s assailant, he had brought this cowardly retaliation 
on himself, made not the least of his anguish. Why could 
his thick head never learn the craftier ways of diplomacy ? 
And here, in consequence, was he himself scotched, when 
most required for killing! He bounded like a madman. 

It took a dozen of them, hauling and swaying and totter- 
ing, to convey him up, and into, and so down again within, 
the tower of the dungeons. Jacopo had no orders other than 
for his safe durance and considerate keep ; but no doubt that 
“ swine ” weighed a little on the human balance side of the 
incorruptible blockhead’s decision. There was a cell — one 
adjoining the “ Hermit’s” — very profound and safe indeed, 
though far less deadly in its appointments (so to speak, for 
the other had none) than its neighbor. And into this cell, 
by the Provost Marshal’s direction, they carried Master 
Carlo, still struggling and roaring; and, having despoiled 
him of his weapons, and — with, some apprehension — un- 
corded him, there locked him in incontinent to the enjoy- 
ment of his own clamor, which, it may be said, he made the 
most of up to midnight. 

And then, quite suddenly, he broke into tears — a thing 
horrible in such a man ; and casting himself down by the 
wall, let the flood of despair pass over his head — literally, it 
almost seemed, in the near cluck and rustle of waters mov- 
ing in the moat outside. 


CHAPTER XXII 

I N the fortress of Vigevano the Duke of Milan sat at wine 
with his gentlemen, his dark face a core of gloom, 
blighting the revel. Flushed cheeks ; sparkling cups ; hot 
dyes of silk and velvet, and the starry splintering of gems ; 
sconces of flaming tapers, and, between, banners of purple 
and crimson, like great moths, hanging on the walls above 
the heads of shining, motionless men-at-arms, whose staves 
and helmets trickled light — all this, the whole rich dam- 
asked picture, seemed, while the sullen eye commanded it, 
to poise upon its own fall and change, like the pieces in a 
kaleidoscope, — the Duke rose and passed out; and already, 
with a leap and clatter, it had tumbled into a frolic of whirl- 
ing colors. 

This company, in short, conscious of its deserts, had felt 
any cold- watering of its spirits at the present pass intoler- 
able. There were captains in it, raw from the icy plains of 
Piedmont, whence they had come after rallying their troops 
into winter quarters, against a resumption of hostilities in 
the spring. Tried men of war, and seasoned toss-pots all, 
they claimed to spend after their mood the wages of valor, 
vindicated in many a hard- wrung victory. They had stood, 
Charles the Bold of Burgundy opposing, for the integrity of 
Savoy, and had trounced its invaders well over the border. 
The sense of triumph was in them, and, consequently, of 
grievance that it should be so discounted by a royal mumps, 
who till yesterday had been their strutting and crowing cock 

249 


250 


BEMBO 


of conquest. What had happened in the interval, so to 
return him upon his old damned familiar self? 

Something beyond their rude guessing — something which, 
at a breath, had re-enveloped him in that cloud of constitu- 
tional gloom, which action and the rush of arms had for 
a little dispelled. The change had taken him earlier in the 
day, when, about the hour of Mass, a little white, cake-fed 
Milanese had come whipping into Vigevano on a foam-drop- 
ping jade, and, crying as he clattered over the drawbridge 
to the castle, “ Ho there, ho there! Despatches for the 
Duke! ” had been snapped up by the portcullis, and gulped 
and disposed of; and was now, no doubt — since no man had 
set eyes on him since — in process of being digested. 

It may have been he that was disagreeing with their lord, 
and sending the black bile to his cheek; or it may have been 
that second tale-bearer who, riding in about mid-day from 
the capital, had brought news of the fire which, the evening 
before, had gutted his Grace’s private closet. Small matters 
in any case ; and in any case, the death’s-head having with- 
drawn itself from the feast, hail the bright reaction from 
that malign, oppressive gloom! A fresh breeze blows 
through the hall ; the candle-flames are jigging to the raf- 
ters ; away with mumps and glumps! Via-via ! See the 
arras blossom into a garden ; the sentries, leaning to it, 
relax into smiling Gabriels of Paradise ; the wine froth and 
sparkle at the cup rim! “Way, way for the Duke’s 
Grace ! ” the seneschal had cried at the door ; and Galeazzo, 
clumsily ushered by Messer Castellan, that blunt old one- 
eyed Cyclops, had slouched heavily out, and the curtain had 
dropped and blotted him from the record. 

He turned sharply to the sound of its thud, and gave a 
quick little stoop and start, as if he were dodging something. 
The face — that haunting, indefinable ghost — was it behind 
him again, unlaid, in spite of all the hope and promise? 
Why not, since its exorcist had proved himself a Judas? 


A TALE OF ITALY 


251 


He ground his teeth, and moved on, muttering and mad- 
dening. Only yesterday he had been flattering himself with 
the thought of returning to his capital wreathed in all the 
glamor of conquest. And now! False fire — false, damning 
fire. What victor was he, who could not command himself? 
What vicegerent of the All-seeing, who could nominate a 
traitor and hypocrite to be his proxy? And he had so be- 
lieved in the accursed boy! 

The prophecy of the monk Capello stuck like a poisonous 
burr in his soul. He could not shake it off. Now, he re- 
membered, was the near season for its maturing — a supersti- 
tion aggravated tenfold by the thought that its ripening had 
been let to prosper in the sun of his own credulous trust. 
And he could not temporize while the moment struck and 
passed, for his fate turned upon the moment. Moreover, 
Christmas was at hand, a tie dear to the traditions of his 
house ; and, rightly or mistakenly, he believed that upon a 
maintenance of those traditions depended his house’s preva- 
lence. His acts must continue to compare royally, in season- 
able largesse and bounty, with those of Francesco, its yet 
adored founder; and he could not afibrd to ignore those 
obligations. He felt himself trapped, and turning, turning, 
between the devil and the deep sea. 

But he was not without a sort of desperado courage ; and 
fury lent him nerve. 

“ Lead on, lead on, Castellano,” he snarled, grinning like 
a wolf. ‘ ‘ The calf by now should be in train for his 
blooding.” 

They found him stalled deep among the foundations of 
the fortress, in a stone chamber whose kiln-like conformation 
shaped itself horribly to the needs and privacies of the “ques- 
tion.” He might, this Tassino, have been a calf indeed, by 
the deadly pallor of his flesh. From the moment when, still 
in the glow of his send-ofF, he had dared, producing his pitce 
de conviction before the Duke, to incriminate Bona on its 


252 


BEMBO 


evidence, and had been gripped by the neck for his pains, 
and flung, squealing like a rat, into this sewer, it had never 
warmed by a degree from this livid hue. Sickened, rather, 
since here, dreadfully interned throughout the day, like a 
schoolboy locked in with an impossible imposition, he had 
been left to writhe and moan, in awful anticipation of the 
coming inquisition and its likely consequences to himself. 
They were prefigured for him, in order to the sharp-setting 
of his wits, in a score or so instruments, all slack and som- 
nolent and unstrung for the time being, but suggestive of 
hideous potentialities in their tautening. The rack riveted 
to the floor ; the pulley pendent from the ceiling ; the stocks 
in the corner, with the chafing-dish, primed with knobs of 
charcoal, ready at its foot-holes ; the escalero or chevalet, 
which was a trough for strangling recalcitrant hogs in, limb 
by limb ; the iron dice for forcing into the heels, and the canes 
for twisting and breaking the fingers ; the water-bag and the 
thumbscrew and the fanged pincers — such, and such in twenty 
variations of hook and stirrup and dangling monstrosities of 
block and steel, but all pointing a common moral of terrific 
human pain, were the inducements to a calmly thought-out 
self-exculpation which had been offered to Tassino’s solitary 
consideration. No wonder that, when at last the key turned 
and the harsh door creaked to admit his inquisitors, he 
should have screamed out with the mortal scream pf a crea- 
ture that finds itself cut off from escape in a burning house. 

The Castellan struck him, judicially, across the mouth, 
and he was silent immediately, falling on his knees and 
softly chattering bloody teeth. Galeazzo, rubbing his chin, 
conned him at his smiling leisure ; while, motionless and 
apathetic in the opening of the door, stood a couple of dark, 
aproned figures, one a Nubian. 

“Ebbene, Messer Tassino,” purred the Duke at length ; 
“ has reconsideration found your indictment open to some 
revision? Rise, sir — rise.” 


A TALE OF ITALY 


253 


He waved his hand loftily. The wretch, after a vain at- 
tempt or two, succeeded in getting to his feet, on which he 
stood like a man palsied. He essayed the while to answer ; 
but somehow his tongue was at odds with his palate. 

The Duke, watching him, stealthily lifted his left hand, 
showing a green stone on one of its fingers. 

“ Mark ye that ? ” said he, smiling. 

The other’s lips moved inaudibly; his glittering eyes were 
fixed upon the token. 

“ Say again,” said Galeazzo, ” who charged ye with it to 
this errand? ” 

The poor animal mumbled. 

Now hist, now hist, my lord’s Grace,” put in the Cas- 
tellan, the light of his solitary eye travelling like a spark in 
dead tinder; “there ’s an emetic or so here would assist the 
creature’s delivery.” 

Tassino gulped and found his voice — or a mockery of it: — 

“ My lord — spare me — ’twas Caprona’s widow.” 

“ And for what purpose ? ” 

The fool, lost in terror, garbled his lesson. 

‘ ‘ To destroy the Duchess, whom she hates. I know not : 
’twas Messer Ludovic made himself her agent to me.” 

“ Ho! ” cried the Duke, and the monosyllable rolled up 
and round under the roof, and was returned upon him. 
“ Here ’s addition, not subtraction. What more? ” 

Advancing, with set grinning lips, he thumbed the vic- 
tim’s arm, as he might be a market- wife testing a fowl. 

‘ ‘ Plump, plump, ’ ’ he said, turning his head about. ‘ ‘ Shall 
we not singe the fat capon, Messer Castellan, before trussing 
him for the spit? ” 

At a sign, the two butchers at the door advanced and 
seized their victim. He struggled desperately in their grasp. 
Shriek upon shriek issued from his lips. Galeazzo thun- 
dered down his cries: 

“ Lay him out,” he roared, “ and bare his ribs.” 


254 


BEMBO 


In a moment Tassino was stretched in the rack, an opera- 
tor, head and heel, gripping at the spokes of the drums. 
The Duke came and stood above, contemplative again now, 
and ingratiatory. 

“ So ! ” he said ; ‘*we are in train, at last, for the truth. 
Tassino, my poor boy, who indeed sent you with this ring 
to me? ” 

“ O Messer! before God! It was your brother.” 

“ And acting for whom ? ” 

” The lady, Beatrice.” 

“ Who had been given it by ? ” 

” Messer Bembo.” 

‘‘Ay: and he had received it from ? ” 

The poor wretch choked, and was silent. Galeazzo 
glanced aside; the winches creaked. 

“ Mercy, in God’s name! Mercy! ” shrieked the miserable 
creature. ‘ ‘ I will swear that it was won from her Grace by 
fraud — that she never knowingly parted with it to — to ” 

“ Ha ! ” struck in the Duke ; and drew himself up, and 
pondered awhile, blackly. 

“ My brother, my brother,” ran his thought. “ It may 
be ; it may well be. To ruin her in mine eyes — yes : a fond 
fool. But a loyal fool. She’d not conspire — not she ; nor 
Simonetta, loyal too — who mistrusts him, and whom he’d 
drag down with her. What, Ludovic! — too crafty, too over- 
reaching. Yet, conspiracy there may be, and she its uncon- 
scious tool.” 

He looked down again, glooming, grating his chin. 

“Here’s some revision, then. Thou whelp, so to have 
bitten the hand that stroked thee! Shall I not draw thy 
teeth for it ? ” 

“Pity, pity!” moaned Tassino. “I spoke under com- 
pulsion.” 

“ And so shall,” snarled the other. “ What ! To mend 
a slander on compulsion! More physic may bring more 


A TALE OF ITALY 


255 


cure. Perchance hast made this Countess too thy cats- 
paw? ” 

“ My lord! No! On my soul! ” 

“ She hates the Duchess? ” 

“ Yes, poisonously.” 

“Why?” 

“My lord!” 

“Why, Isay?” 

“ Alas! she covets for herself what the Duchess claims to 
heaven.” 

“ Riddles, swine! Covets! What or whom ? ” 

“ O, O! Your Grace’s false deputy, Messer Bembo.” 

“ What! false? You ’ll stick to it ? ” 

‘ ‘ How can I help ? — O ! dread my lord, how can I help 
the truth, unless you ’d wrench from me a travesty of 
it?” 

His breast heaved and sobbed. The tyrant gloomed upon 
him. 

“ Is it true, then, he’s a traitor?” 

“ O, the blackest — the most subtle! There can I utter 
without prompting.” 

It was true that he believed he could. Remember how, 
mongrel though he was, his mind had been fed on slander 
of our saint. 

Galeazzo dropped into a moody reverie. A long quivering 
sigh thereat broke from his prostrate victim. Mean wits are 
cunning for themselves ; and, looking up into the dark eyes 
bent above him, Tassino thought he saw reflected there 
a first faint ghost of hope. O, to hold, to materialize it! He 
must be infinitely cautious. 

He moaned, and wagged his head. The Duke broke out 
again : — 

“False! is he false to me ? And yet my wife is true, thou 
sayest? and yet this woman of Caprona’s jealous, thou 
sayest? Of whom? 0, dog, beware! ” 


256 


BEMBO 


“ Master, of a shadow. She reads the woman’s baseness 
in the man’s.” 

“ Ho! Not like thou: what, puppy ? ” 

“ Before God, no. ’T is Madonna’s very innocence helps 
his designs.” 

“ How?” 

“ By trusting in, and exalting them for heaven’s. She ’ll 
wake when it ’s too late, and weep and curse herself for hav- 
ing betrayed thee.” 

“ She will? Betray? Too late? Those be terms meeter 
to a rebellion than a schism.” 

“ Yet must I speak them, weeping, though I die.” 

The despot gnawed his lip. 

“ Hast venom in thee, and with reason, to sting the 
boy ? ” 

“Alas! to warn thee rather from his fang.” 

“Ha!” 

‘ ‘ It will lie flat against his palate, till the time when with 
his subtle eyes he shall invite thy hand to stroke his head. 
No rebellion, lord; no python rearing on his crushing folds. 
Yet may the little snake be deadlier.” 

He was gathering confidence hair by hair. There were 
glints of coming tempest, well known to him, blooding the 
corners of Galeazzo’s eyes. He believed, by them, that he 
should presently ride this storm of his own evoking. 

“Ah!” he moaned, “ I ’m sick. Mercy, lord! Truth ’s 
not itself unless upright.” 

The tryant tossed his hand: — 

” Set the dog on his legs.” 

The dog so far justified his title that, being released, he 
crawled abject on all fours to his master’s feet, and crouched 
there ready to lick them. 

Bah! ” cried the Duke, and spurned him. “ Get on thy 
hind legs, ape! The rope’s but slackened from thy hang- 
ing ; the noose yet cuddles to thy neck. Stand’ st there to 


A TALE OF ITALY 


257 

justify thyself, or answer with a separate rack and screw for 
every lie thou ’st uttered.” 

He strode a pace or two like one demented; turned, snarled 
out a sudden shocking laugh, and came close up again to 
the trembling but still confident wretch. 

“ See, we ’ll be reasonable,” he said, mockingly insinua- 
tive ; “a twin amity of dialecticians, ardent for the truth, 
cooing like love-birds. * Well, on my faith, he ’s a traitor,’ 
says you ; and ‘Your faith shall be mine on vindication, sweet 
brother,’ says I. Now, what proves him traitor, I ask?” 

“ He rules the palace.” 

“ Why, I set him in my place.” 

“You did indeed; but — ah! dare I say what’s whis- 
pered ? ’ ’ 

“ You ’d better.” 

“ Why — O, mercy! Bid me not.” 

“ I ’ll not ask again.” 

“You force me to it — that, being there, he designs to 
stay.” 

“He’ll be Duke?” 

“ No, no.” 

“ You shall wince with better reason. Dog, you dog my 
patience. I ’ll turn. What then ? ” 

“ Only that he sits for Christ. Let them depose him that 
are devils’ men.” 

“My men?” 

“ O, he ’s subtle. No word against your Grace ; only the 
dumb pleas of love and pity courting comparison.” 

“With what?” 

“ Your Grace’s sharper methods.” 

“ Beast! Did I not waive them for his sake? Did I not 
leave my conscience in his keeping ? ” 

“Alas ! if thou didst, he ’s used it, like a false friend, in 
damning evidence against thee.” 

“ O Judas! ” 


258 


BEMBO 


“Used it to point the moral of his own large tolerance. 
The people rise to him — cry him in the streets: ‘ Down with 
Galeazzo ! Nature’s our God ! ’ ” 

“ Ha! He’s Nature?’’ 

“ As they read him — lord of the slums.’’ 

“ Lord of filthy swine. I ’ll ring their snouts. Well, go 
on. God of the slums, is he ? ’ ’ 

“ God of thy palace, too ; mends and amends thy laws — 
sugars them for sweet palates — gains the women — O, a 
prince of confectioners I There ’s the ring to prove.’’ 

“What?’’ 

“ I can guess when he wheedled it.” 

“ Thou canst? ’’ 

“ The moment thy back was turned. So quick he sped to 
discredit thee — to reverse thy judgments. The monk thou ’d 
left to starve, a dog well-served — he ’d release him, a fine 
text to open on. But Jacopo was obdurate — would not let 
him pass, neither him nor Cicada ’ ’ 

“What! the Fool?’’ 

“ O, they ’re in one conspiracy — inseparable. He ’s to be 
Vizier some day.’’ 

“ I ’ll remember that.’’ 

“ So he ran off, and presently returned with a pass- token. 
I guessed not what at the time ; now I guess. It was the 
ring he ’d coaxed from Madonna.’’ 

‘ ‘ And saved the monk thereby? ’ ’ 

‘ ‘ Ah-ha! Jacopo had forestalled him; the monk was dead. ’ ’ 

“ What did he then ? ’’ 

“ Cursed thy lord’s Grace and ran ; ran and hid himself 
away among the people, he and his Fool, and spat his poi- 
son in that sewer, to fester and bear fruit. ’T was only 
presently the Duchess heard of him, and persuaded him on 
sweet promise of amendment back to the Court. He ’s made 
the most of that concession since, using it to ’ ’ 

He checked himself, and whimpered and sprang back. 


A TALE OF ITALY 


259 


On the instant the storm which he had dreaded while provok 
ng was burst upon him. Credulous and irrational like all 
tyrants, Galeazzo never thought to analyze interests and 
motives in any indictment whose pretext was devotion to 
himself and his safety. Wrapped in eternal unbelief in all 
men, no man was so easily arrested as he by the first hint 
of a plausible rogue professing to serve him, or so quick, 
being inoculated, to develop the very confluent scab of sus- 
picion. It were well only for Autolycus to make the most 
of his fees during his little spell of favor, and to disappear 
on the earliest threat of himself falling victim to the disease 
he had promoted. 

Now, for this dumb-struck quartette of knaves and butch- 
ers, was enacted one of those little danses-diaboliques in 
which this fearful man was wont to vent his periodic fren- 
zies. He shrieked and leapt and foamed, racing and twisting 
to and fro within the narrow confines of the dungeon. Rav- 
ings and blasphemies tore and sputtered from his lips ; mad 
destruction issued at his hands. He spurned whatever 
blocked his path, things living or inanimate; nor seemed to 
feel or recognize how he bruised himself, but stumbled over, 
and snatched at, and hurled aside, all that crossed the red 
vision of his rage. Struggling for coherence, he could force 
his imprecations but by fits and snatches to rise articulate: — 
“Subtle! — I ’ll be subtler — devil unmasked — no Future? — a 
specious dog — hell gapes in front — master of my own — to 
vindicate the monk? — treason against his lord — ha, ha! 
Jacopo! good servant! good refuter of a sacrilegious 
hound ! ’ ’ 

Then all at once, quite suddenly as it had risen, the tem- 
pest passed. Slack, dribbling, hoarse, unashamed, he 
stopped beside his death-white informer and pawed and 
mouthed upon him: — 

“ Why, Tassino! Why — my little honest carver of joints! 
Thou mean ’st me well, I do believe. 


26 o 


BEMBO 


O my lord! ” cried the trembling rogue, “ if you would 
but trust me! ” 

“ Why, so I do, Tassino,” urged the Duke, nervously 
handling and stroking the young man’s arm. “ So I do, 
little pretty varlet. I believe thy story — fie! an impious 
tale. Deserv’st well of me for that boldness — good cour- 
age — the truth needs it. Wilt serve me yet ? ” 

“ My lord, to the death.” 

” Eie, fie! Not so far, I hope. Yet, listen; ’t were meet 
this viper were not let to crawl himself within our laurels, 
and crown our triumph with a poisonous bite. Hey? ” 

‘ ‘ I understand your Grace. ’ ’ 

‘ ‘ A hint ’s enough, then. ’ T is no great matter; but these 
worms will sting. ’ ’ 

“ I ’ll jog Jacopo.” 

“You will? He ’s true to me ? ” 

“Oyes!” 

“No convert to the other ? ” 

“ He hates him well.” 

‘ ‘ Does he ? A viper has no friends but his kind. This 
one — hark! a word in your ear. He’d loose Capello, who 
damned me, and was damned ? Were it not right then the 
false prophet should take the false prophet’s place ? ” 

“ Most right.” 

“The word ’s with thee, little chuck. How about the 
Fool? 

“ As bad, or worse, my lord.” 

“ Hush! Two vipers, do you say ? 

“My lord!” 

“ Be circumspect, that’s all. ’Tis our will to give great 
largesse this Christmastide. ’ ’ 

“The very sound will jingle out his memory — bury the 
golden calf under gold.” 

“ Good, little rogue. We ’ll linger on the Mount mean- 
while— just a day or so, to let the promise work. ’T were 


A TALE OF ITALY 


261 


a sleeveless triumph through a grudging city. Let these 
thorns be plucked first from our road.” 

“ I ’ll ride at once, saving your Grace.” 

“ Do so, and tell Jacopo, ‘ Quietly, mind — without fuss.’ ” 

“ Trust me.” 

The Duke flicked his arm and turned, smiling, to the 
Castellan. 

“You shall provide Messer Tassino,” said he smoothly, 
with his liberty and a swift horse.” 

A week later, Sforza the second of Milan set out for his 
capital, in all the pomp and circumstance of state which be- 
fitted a mighty prince greatly homing after conquest. His 
path, by all the rules of glory, should have been a bright 
one ; yet his laurels might have been Death’s own, from the 
gloom they cast upon his brow. Last night, looking from 
his chamber window, he had seen a misty comet cast athwart 
that track : to-day, scarce had he started, when three ravens, 
rising from the rice swamps, had come flapping with hoarse 
crow to cross it. He had thundered for an arbalest — loosed 
the quarrel — shot wide — spun the weapon to the ground. 
An inexplicable horror had seized him. Thenceforth 
he rode with bent head and glassy eyes fixed upon the 
crupper. The road of death ran before ; behind sat the 
shadow of his fear, cutting him from retreat. So he 
reached the Porta Giovia, passed over the drawbridge, 
in silence dismounted, and for the first time looked up 
vaguely. 

“ Black, black! ” he muttered to the page who held his 
horse. “ Let Mass be sung in it to-morrow, and for the 
chants be dirges. See to it.” 

Did he hope so to hoodwink heaven, by abasing himself 
in the vestments of remorse? Likely enough. He had 
always been cunning to hold from it the worst of his 
confidence. 


262 


BEMBO 


But in the thick of the night a voice came to him, blown 
upon the wind of dreams: — 

“No Future, O, no Future! Look to thy past! ” 

And he started up in terror, quavering aloud : — 

“ Who ’s that that being dead yet speaketh! “ 


CHAPTER XXIII 


I T is remarkable how quickly the brute genii will adapt 
himself to his pint bottle when once the cork is in. 
Elastic, it must be remembered, has the two properties of 
expansion and retraction, the latter being in correspond- 
ing proportion to the former. Wherefore, the greater 
its stretching capacity the more compact its compass 
unstretched. 

So it is with life, which is elastic, and mostly lived at a 
tension. Relax that tension, and behold the buoyant tem- 
perament finding roomier quarters in a straitened confine- 
ment than would ever a flaccid one in the same ; and this in 
defiance of Bonnivard, that fettered Nimrod of the mountains, 
whose heart broke early in captivity, and who, nevertheless, 
as a matter of fact, did not exist. 

The truth is, a pint pot is over-enough to contain the 
mind of many an honest vigorous fellow ; and it is the mind, 
rather than the body, which struggles for elbow-room. 
Carlo, in his prison, suffered little from that mere mental 
horror of circumscription which, to a more sensitive soul, 
had been the infinite worst of his doom. He champed, and 
stamped, and raged, sure enough ; cursed his fate, his im- 
potence, his restrictions; but all from a cleaner standpoint 
than the nerves — from one (no credit to him for that) less 
constitutionally personal. That he should be shut from the 
possibility of helping in a sore pass the little friend of his 
love, of his faith, of his adoration — the pretty child who had 
needed, never so much as at this moment, the help and pro- 

263 


264 


BEMBO 


tection of his strong arm — here was the true madness of his 
condition. And he bore it hardly, while the fit possessed 
him, and until physical exhaustion made room for the little 
reserves of reason which all the time had been waiting on its 
collapse. 

Then, suddenly, he became very quiet ; an amenable, 
wicked, dangerous thing; fed greedily; nursed his muscles; 
spake his gaolers softly when they visited him ; refrained 
from asking useless questions to elicit evasive answers; 
brooded by the hour together when alone. They treated 
him with every consideration; answered practically his de- 
mands for books, paper, pens and ink, wine — for all bodily 
ameliorations of his lot which he chose to suggest, short of 
the means to escape it. There, only, was there no concession 
— no response to the request of an insulted cavalier to be 
returned the weapons of his honor of which he had been 
basely mulcted. His fingers must serve his mouth, he was 
told, and his teeth his meat — they were sharp enough. At 
which he would grin, and click those white knives together, 
and return to his brooding. 

But not, at last, for long. Very soon he was engaged 
in exploring his dungeon, a gloomy cellar, two thirds of it 
below the level of the moat, and lit by a single window, 
deep-shafted under the massive ceiling. His search, at first, 
yielded him no returns but of impenetrable induracy — no 
variations, knock where he might, in the echoless irrespon- 
siveness of dumb-thick walls. Only, with that incessant 
tap-tapping of his, the trouble in his brain fell into rhythm, 
chiming out eternally, monotonously, the inevitable answer 
to a fruitlesss question with which, from the outset, he had 
been tormenting himself, and from which, for all his sickness 
of its vanity, he could not escape. 

“What hath Cicada done? Concluded me safely sped? 
Done nothing, therefore. What hath Cicada done? Con- 
cluded me safely sped ? Done nothing, therefore. ’ * 


A TALE OF ITALY 265 

So, the villainy was working, and he in his dungeon 
powerless to counteract it. 

He lived vividly through all these phases — of despair, of 
self-concentration, of resourceful hope — during the opening 
twenty-four hours of his confinement. And then, once 
upon a time, very suddenly, very softly, very remotely, 
there was borne in upon him the strange impression that he 
was not alone in his underworld. 

The first shadow of this conviction came to haunt him 
during the second night of his imprisonment, when, having 
fallen asleep, there presently stole into his brain, out of a 
deep subconsciousness of consciousness, the knowledge that 
some voice, extraneous to himself, was moaning and throb- 
bing into his ear. 

At the outset this voice appealed to him for nothing more 
than the emotional soft babble of a dream. It seemed to 
reach to him from a vast distance, breathing very faint, and 
thin, and sweet through aeons of pathetic memories. He 
could not identify or interpret it, save in so far as its burden 
always hinted of a wistful sadness. But, gradually, as the 
spell of it enwrapped and claimed him, out of its inarticu- 
lateness grew form, and out of that form recognition. 

It was Bernardo singing to his lute. How could he not 
have known it, when here was the boy actually walking by 
his side ? They trod a smiling meadow, sweet with narcissus 
and musical with runnels. The voice made ecstasy of the 
Spring; frisked in the blood of little goats; unlocked the 
sap of trees so that they leapt into a spangled spray of 
blossoms. 

A step — and the turf was dry beneath their feet. The 
sun smote down upon the plain; the grasshopper shrieked 
like a jet of fire; the full-uddered cattle lowed for evening 
and the shadowed stall. 

Again, a step — and the leaves of the forest blew abroad 
like flakes of burning paper; the vines shed fruit like heavy 


266 


BEMBO 


drops of blood; the sky grew dark in front, rolling towards 
them a dun wall of fog — the music wailed and ceased. 

He turned upon his comrade; and saw the lute swung 
aside, the pale lips yet trembling with their song. He knew 
the truth at once. 

“ We part here,” he murmured. “Is it not? So swiftly 
run thy seasons. And you return to Spring ; and I — O, I 
go on! Whither, sweet angel? O, wilt thou not linger a 
little, that, reaching mine allotted end, I may hurry back to 
overtake thee ? 

Then, clasping his hands in agony, the tears running 
down his cheeks, he saw how the boy bent to whisper in 
his ear — words of divine solace — nay, not words, but music 
— music, music all, of an unutterable pathos. 

And he awoke, to hear the shrunk, inarticulate murmur 
of it still whispering to his heart. 

He sat up, panting, in the deep blackness. His hands 
trembled ; his face was actually wet. But the music had not 
ended with his dream. Grown very soft and far and re- 
mote, it yet went sounding on in fact — or was it only in 
fancy? 

His still-drugged brain surged back into slumber on the 
thought. Instantly the voice began to take shape and 
reality : he caught himself from the mist — as instantly it fell 
again into phantom of itself. 

And thus it always happened. So surely as he listened 
wakeful, straining his hearing, the voice would reach him 
as a far plaintive murmur, a vague intolerable sweetness, 
without identity or suggestion save of some woful loss. So 
surely did his brain swerve and his aching eyes seal down, 
it would begin to gather form, and words out of form, and 
expresssion out of words — expression, of a sorrow so wildly 
sad and moving, that his dreaming heart near broke beneath 
the burden of its grief. 

A strange experience; yet none so strange but that we 


A TALE OF ITALY 


267 


must all have known it, what time our errant soul has leapt 
back into our waking consciousness, carrying with it, on 
the wind of its return, some echo of the spirit world with 
which it had been consorting. Who has not known what it 
is to wake, in a dumb sleeping house, to the certain know- 
ledge of a cry just uttered, a sentence just spoken, of a laugh 
or whisper stricken silent on the instant, nor felt the dark- 
ness of his room vibrate and settle into blankness as he 
listened, and, listening, lost the substance of that phantom 
utterance ? 

But at length for Carlo dream and reality were blended in 
one forgetfulness. 

Morning weakened, if it could not altogether dissipate, his 
superstitions. Though one be buried in a vault, there ’s that 
in the mere texture of daylight, even if the thinnest and 
frowziest, to muffle the fine sense of hearing. If, in truth, 
those mystic harmonics still throbbed and sighed, his mind 
had ceased to be attuned to them. He lent it to the more 
practical business of resuming his examination of his prison. 

At mid-day, while he was sitting at his dinner, a visitor 
came and introduced himself to him, leaping, very bold and 
impudent, to the table itself, where he sat up, trimming his 
whiskers anticipatory. It was a monstrous brown rat ; and 
self-possessed — Lord! Carlo dropped his fists on the cloth, 
and stared, and then fell to grinning. 

“ O, you’ve arrived, have you!” said he. “Your ser- 
vant, Messer Topo! ” 

It was obviously the gentleman’s name. At the sound of 
it, he lowered his fore-paws, flopped a step or two nearer, 
and sat up again. Carlo considered him delightedly. He 
was one of those men between whom and animals is always 
a sympathetic confidence. 

“ Is it, Messer Topo.” said he, “ that you desire to honor 
me with the reversion of a former friendship ? What ? You 
flip your whiskers in protest ? No friend, you imply, who 


268 


BEMBO 


could educate your palate to cooked meats, and then betray 
it, returning you to old husks ? Has he deserted you, then ? 
Alas, Messer ! We who frequent these cellars are not mas- 
ters of our exits and our entrances. How passed he from 
your ken, that same unknown ? Feet-first ? Face-first ? 
Tell me, and I ’ll answer for his faith or faithlessness.’* 

The visitor showed some signs of impatience. 

“What!” cried Carlo. “My grace is overlong? Shall 
we fall to ? Yet, soft. Fain would I know first the value 
of this proffered love, which, to my base mind, seems to 
smack a little of the cupboard.” 

His hand went into the dish. Messer Topo ceased from 
preening his moustache, and stiffened expectant, his paws 
erect. 

“Ha-ha!” cried Carlo. “You are there, are you? O, 
Messer Topo, Messer Topo ! Kven prisoners, I find, possess 
their parasites.” 

He held out a morsel of meat. The big rat took it confi- 
dently in his paws ; tested, and approved it ; sat up for more. 

“ What manners! ” admired Carlo. “ Art the very pink 
of Topos. Come, then ; we ’ll dine together.” 

Messer Topo acquitted himself with perfect correctness. 

When satisfied, he sat down and cleaned himself. Carlo 
ventured to scratch his head. He paused, to submit politely 
to the attention — which, though undesired, he accepted on 
its merits — then, the hand being withdrawn, waited a 
moment for courtesy’s sake, and returned to his scouring. 
In the midst, the key grated in the door, and like a flash he 
was gone. 

“ Khi! ” pondered Carlo; “ it is very evident he has been 
trained to shy at authority.” 

It seemed so, indeed, and that authority knew nothing of 
him. Otherwise, probaby, authority would have resented 
his interference with its theories of solitary confinement to 
the extent of trapping and killing him. 


A TALE OF ITALY 


269 


The prisoner saw no more of his little sedate visitor that 
evening; but, with night and sleep, the voice again took up 
the tale of his haunting; and this time, somehow, to his 
dreaming senses, Messer Topo seemed to be the medium of 
its piteous conveyance to him. Once more he woke, and 
slept, and woke again ; and always to hear the faint music 
gaining or losing body in opposite ratio with his conscious- 
ness. He was troubled and perplexed ; awake by dawn, and 
harking for confirmation of his dreams. But daylight 
plugged his hearing. 

He had expected Messer Topo to breakfast. He did not 
come. He called — and there he was. They exchanged con- 
fidences and discussed biscuits. The key grated, and Mes- 
ser Topo was gone. 

This day Carlo set himself to solve the mystery of his 
visitor’s lightning disappearances — Anglict, to find a rat- 
hole. Fingering, in the gloom, along the joint of floor and 
wall, he presently discovered a jagged hole which he thought 
might explain. Without removing his hand, he called 
softly: “Topo! Messer Topo!” Instantly a little sharp 
snout, tipped with a chilly nose, touched him and withdrew. 
He stood up, as the key turned in the lock once more. 

This time it was Messer Jacopo himself who entered, 
while his bulldogs watched at the door. He came to bring 
the prisoner a volume of Martial, which Carlo had once had 
recommended to him, and of which he had since bethought 
himself as a possible solace in his gloom. The Provost 
Marshal advanced, with the book in his hand, and seeing 
his captive’s occupation, as he thought, paused, with a dry 
smile on his lips. Then, with his free palm, he caressed the 
wall thereabouts. 

“Strong masonry, Messer,” he said; “good four feet 
thick. And what beyond ? A dungeon, deadlier than thine 
own.” 

Carlo laughed. 


270 


BEMBO 


“ A heavy task for nails, old hold-fast, sith you have left 
me nothing else. Lasciate ogni speranza^ hey, and all the 
rest? I know, I know. Yet, look you, there should have 
been coming and going here once, to judge by the tokens.” 

He signified, by a sweep of his hand, a square patch on 
the stones, roughly suggestive of a blocked doorway, wherein 
the mortar certainly appeared of a date more recent than the 
rest. 

The other made a grim mouth. 

“ Coming, Messer,” he said; ” but little going. Half-way 
he sticks who entered, waiting for the last trump. He’ll 
not move until.” 

Carlo recoiled. 

“ There ’s one immured there? ” 

“ Ay, these ten years ” 

And the wooden creature, laying the book on the table, 
stalked out like an automaton. 

He left the prisoner gulping and staring. Here, in sooth, 
was food for his fancy, luckily no great possession. But the 
horror bit him, nevertheless. Presently he took up the book 
— tried to forget himself in it. He found it certainly very 
funny, and laughed: found it very gross, and laughed — and 
then thought of Bernardo, and frowned, and threw the thing 
into a corner. Then he started to his feet and went up and 
down, nervously, with stealthy glances to the wall. 
Haunted! No wonder he was haunted. Did it sob and 
moan in there o’ nights, beating with its poor blind hands 
on the stone? Did it 

A thought stung him, and he stopped. The rat! Its 
run broke into that newer mortar, penetrated, perhaps, as 
far as the buried horror itself. Was there the secret of the 
music? Was it wont, that hapless spectre, putting its pallid 
lips to the hole, to sigh nightly through it its melodious tale 
of griefs ? 

He stood gnawing his thumb-nail. 


A TALE OF ITALY 


271 


What might it be — man or woman? There was that 
legend of a nun with child by — Nay, horrible! What 
might it be? Nothing at this last, surely — sexless — ^just a 
spongy chalk of bones, a soft rubble for rats to nest in. O, 
Messer Topo, Messer Topo I on what dust of human tragedy 
did you make your bed I Perhaps 

No! perish the thought! Messer Topo was a gentleman — 
descendant of a long line of gentlemen — no hereditary canni- 
bal. He preferred meats cooked to raw. An hereditary 
guardian, rather, of that flagrant tomb. And yet 

He lay down to rest that night, lay rigid for a long while, 
battling with a monstrous soul-terror. A burst of perspira- 
tion relieved him at last, and he sank into oblivion. 

Then, lo! swift and instant, it seemed, the unearthly 
music caught him in its spell. It was more poignant than 
he had known it yet — loud, piercing, leaping like the flame 
of a blown candle. He awoke, sweating and trembling. 
The vibration of that gale of sorrow seemed yet ringing in 
his ears — from the walls, from the ceiling, from the glass 
rim of his drinking- vessel on the table, which repeated it in 
a thousand tinkling chimes. But again the voice itself had 
attenuated to a ghost of sound — a mere ^olian thread of 
sweetness. 

But it was a voice. 

Carlo sat up on his litter. He was a man of obdurate will, 
of a conquering resolution; and the moment, unnerving as 
it seized him out of sleep, found him nevertheless decided. 
A shaft of green moonlight struck down from the high grate 
into his dungeon, spreading like oil where it fell ; floating 
over floor and table; leaving little dark objects stranded in 
its midst. Its upper part, reflecting the moving waters of 
the moat outside, seemed to boil and curdle in a frantic 
dance of atoms, as though the spirit music was rising thither 
in soundless bubbles. 

He listened a minute, scarcely breathing; then dropped 


272 


BEMBO 


softly to the floor, and stole across his chamber, and stooped 
and listened at the wall. 

The next moment he had risen and staggered back, pant- 
ing, glaring with dilated eyes into the dark. There was no 
longer doubt. It was by way of Messer Topo’s pierced 
channel that the music had come welling to him. 

But whence ? 

Commanding himself by a tense effort, he bent once more, 
and listened. Tong now — so long that one might have 
heard the passion in his heart conceive, and writhe, and 
grow big, and at length deliver itself in a fierce and woful 
cry: “ Bernardo! my little, little brother ! ” 

With the words, he leapt up and away — tore hither and 
thither like a madman — mouthed broken imprecations 
fought for articulate speech and self-control. The truth — all, 
the wicked, damnable truth — had burst upon him in a flash. 
No ghostly voice was this of a ten years immured ; but one, 
now recognized, sweet and human beyond compare, the 
piteous solution of all his hauntings. The run pierced 
further than to that middle tragedy — pierced to a tragedy 
more intimate and dreadful — pierced through into the ad- 
joining cell, where lay his child, his little love, perishing of 
cold and hunger. He read it all in an instant — the disas- 
trous consequences of his own disaster. And he could not 
comfort or intervene while this, his pretty swan, was singing 
himself to death hard by. 

Pity him in that minute. I think, poor wretch, his state 
was near the worst — so strong, and yet so helpless. He 
shrieked, he struck himself, he blasphemed. Monstrous? it 
was monstrous beyond all human limits of malignity. So 
the ring had sped and wrought! What had this angel done, 
but been an angel ? What had Cicada, so hide-bound in his 
own conceit of folly ? Curst watchdogs both, to let them- 
selves be fooled and chained away while the wolf was raven- 
ing their lamb! 


A TALE OF ITALY 


273 


He sobbed, fighting for breath: — 

“ Messer Topo, Messer Topo ! Thou art the only gentle- 
man! I crave thy forgiveness, O, I crave thy forgiveness 
for that slander! A rat! I ’ll love them always — a better 
gentleman, a better friend, bringing us together ! ” 

With the thought, he flung himself down on the floor, 
and put his ear to the hole. Still, very faint and remote, 
the music came leaking by it — a voice ; the throb of a lute. 

He changed his ear for his lips : — 

‘‘Bernardo!” he screamed; “Bernardo! Bernardo!” 
and listened anew. 

The music had ceased — that was certain. It was suc- 
ceeded by a confused, indistinguishable murmur, which in 
its turn died away. 

“ Bernardo! ” he screeched again, and lay hungering for 
an answer. 

It came to him, suddenly, in one rapturous soft cry: 

“Carlo!” 

No more. The sweet heart seemed to break, the broken 
spirit to wing on it. Thereafter was silence, awful and 
eternal. 

He called again and again — no response. He rose, and 
resumed his maddened race, to and fro, praying, weeping, 
clutching at his throat. At length worn out, he threw him- 
self once more by the wall, his ear to the hole, and lying 
there, sank into a sort of swoon. 

Messer Topo, sniffing sympathetically at his face, awoke 
him. He sat up; remembered; stooped down ; sought to 
cry the dear name again, and found his voice a mere whisper. 
That crowned his misery. But he could still listen. 

No sound, however, rewarded him. He spent the day in 
a dreadful tension between hope and despair — snarled over 
the periodic visits of his jailers — snarled them from his 
presence — was forever crouching and listening. They 
fancied his wits going, and nudged one another and grinned. 


BEMBO 


274 

He never thought to question them; was always one of 
those strong souls who find, not ask, the way to their own 
ends. He knew they would lie to him, and was only impa- 
tient of their company. Seeing his state, they were at the 
trouble to take some extra precautions, always posting a 
guard on the stairs before entering his cell. Messer Lanti, 
normal, was suflSciently formidable; possessed, there was no 
foretelling his possibilities. 

But they might have reassured themselves. Escape, at the 
moment, was farthest from his thoughts or wishes. He 
would have stood for his dungeon against the world ; he 
clung to his wall, like a frozen ragamuflSn to the outside of 
a baker’s oven. 

Presently he bethought himself of an occupation, at once 
suggestive and time- killing. He had been wearing his spurs 
when captured — weapons, of a sort, overlooked in the re- 
moval of deadlier — and these, in view of vague contingencies, 
he had taken off and hidden in his bed. His precaution was 
justified; he saw a certain use for them now; and so, pro- 
curing them, set to work to enlarge with their rowels the 
opening of the rat-hole. He wrought busily and energetic- 
ally. Messer Topo sat by him a good deal, watching, with 
courteous and even curious forbearance, his really insolent 
desecration of his front door. They dined together as usual 
and then Carlo returned to his work. His plan was to en- 
large the opening into a funnel-like mouth, meeter for receiv- 
ing and conveying sounds. It had occurred to him that the 
point of the tiny passage’s issue into the next cell might 
be difficult of localization by one imprisoned there, especially 
if the search — as he writhed to picture it — was to be made 
in a blinding gloom. If he could only have continued to 
help by his voice — to cry “Here! Here!” in this tragic 
game of hide-and-seek! He wrought dumbly, savagely 
nursing his lungs against that moment. But still by night 
it had not come to be his. 


A TALE OF ITALY 


275 


Then, all in an instant, an inspiration came to him. He 
sat down, and wrote upon a slip of paper: ^'‘From Carlo 
Lanti^ prisojier aiid neighbor. Mark who brings thee this — 
whence he issues, and whither returns. Speak, then, by that 
road — ’ ’ and having summoned Messer Topo, fastened the 
billet by a thread about his neck, and carrying him to his 
run, dismissed him into it. Wonder of wonders ! the great 
little beast disappeared upon his errand. Henceforth kill 
them for vermin that called the rat by such a name ! 

Messer Topo did not return. What matter, if he had sped 
his mission ? Only, had he ? There was the torture. Hour 
after hour went by, and still no sign. Carlo fell asleep, with 
his ear to the funnel. That night the music did not visit 
him. He awoke — to daylight, and the knowledge of a sud- 
den cry in his brain. Tremulous, he turned, and found his 
voice had come back to him, and cleared it, and quavered 
hoarsely into the hole, “ Who speaks ? Who ’s there ? ” 

He dwelt in agony on the answer — thin, exhausted, a 
croaking gasp, it reached him at length : — 

“ Cicca — the Fool — near sped.” 

“The Fool! Thou — thou and none other?” His cry 
was like a wolf’s at night ; “ none other ? Bernardo ! ” he 
screeched. 

A pause — then: “Dead, dead, dead!” came wheezing 
and pouring from the hole. 

“Ah!” 

He fell back ; swayed in a mortal vertigo ; rallied. He 
was quite calm on the instant — calm ? — a rigid, bloodless 
devil. He set his mouth and spoke, picking his words : — 

“ So ? Is it so ? All trapped together, then ? When did 
he die? ” 

“ Quick !” clucked the voice ; “quick, and let me pass. 
When, say’st? Time ’s dead and rotten here. I know not. 
A’ heard thee call — and roused — and shrieked thy name. 
His heart broke on it. A’ spoke never again. All ’s said 


276 


BEMBO 


and done. What more ? I could not find the hole — till thy 
rat came. Speak quick.” 

What more? What more to mend or mar? Nothing, 
now. Hope was as dead as Time — a poxed and filthy 
corpse. Love, Faith, and Charity — dead and putrid. Only 
two things remained — two things to hug and fondle : revenge 
and Messer Topo. He bent and spoke again : 

“ Starved to death ? ” 

“ Starved ” 

The queer, far little mutter seemed to reel and swerve into 
a tinkle — an echo — was gone. Carlo called, and called 
again — no answer. Then he set himself to ruminate — a 
cud of gall and poison. 

On the eighth morning of his confinement, Jacopo, in per- 
son and alone, suddenly showed himself at the door, which 
he threw wide open. 

“ Free, Messer,’* he said ; “ and summoned under urgency 
to the palace.” 

Carlo nodded, and asked not a single question, receiving 
even his weapons back in silence. He had had a certain 
presentiment that this moment would arrive. He begged 
only that the Provost Marshal would leave him to himself 
a minute. He had some thanks to offer up, he said, with a 
smile, which had been better understood and dreaded by 
a gentler soul. 

The master gaoler was a religious man, and acquiesced 
willingly, going forward a little up the stairway, that the 
other might be private. Carlo, thereupon, stepped across to 
the wall, and whispered for Messer Topo. 

The big rat responded at once, coming out and sitting up 
at attention. Carlo put his hands under his shoxilders, and 
lifting him (the two were by now on the closest terms of in- 
timacy), apostrophized him face to face: 

” My true, mine only friend at last,” he said (his voice 


A TALE OF ITALY 


277 


was thick and choking). “ I must go, leaving him to thee. 
Be reverent with him for my sake — ah ! if I return not anon, 
to carry out and plant that sweet corse in the daisied grass 
he loved — not dust to dust, but flower to the dear flowers. 
Look to it. Shall I never see him more — nor thee ? I know 
not. I ’ve that to do first may part us to eternity — yet must 
I do it. Come, kiss me God-be-with-ye. Nay, that’s a 
false word. How can He, and this bloody ensign on my 
brow? My brain in me doth knell already like a leper’s 
bell. Canst hear it, red-eyes? No God for me. Why 
should I need Him — tell me that? Christ could not save 
His friend. I must go alone — quite alone at last. Only re- 
member I loved thee — always remember that. And so, 
thou fond and pretty thing, farewell ! ” 

He put his lips to the little furry head; put the animal 
gently down ; longed to it a moment ; then, as it disappeared 
into its run, turned with a wet and burdened sigh. 

But, even with the sound, a black and gripping frost 
seemed to fall upon him. He drew himself up, set his face 
to the door, and passed out and on to freedom and the woful 
deed he contemplated. 


CHAPTER XXIV 



DESPOTISM (Messer Bembo invitus) is the only 


i \ absolute expression of automatic government. The 
fly-wheel moves, and every detail of the machinery, saw, 
knife, or punch, however distant, responds instantly to its 
initiative. Galeazzo, for example, had but to make, in 
Vigevano, the tenth part of a revolution, and behold, in 
Milan! Messer Jacopo — saw, knife, and punch in one — had 
“come down,” automatically, upon the objectives of that 
movement. Within a few minutes of Tassino’s return, 
Bernardo and his Fool, seized quietly and without resistance 
as they were taking the air on the battlements, were being 
lowered with cords into the “ Hermit’s Cell.” 

Szc itur ad astra. 

The Duke of Milan re-entered his capital on the 20th of 
December. His Duchess met him with happy smiles and 
tears, loving complaints over his long absence, a sweet 
tongue ready with vindication of her trust, should that be 
demanded of her. The last week had done much to reas- 
sure her in the near return to familiar conditions which it 
had witnessed ; and she felt herself almost in a position to 
restore to her Bluebeard the key, unviolated, of the forbidden 
chamber. If only he would accept that earnest of her 
loyalty without too close a questioning I 

And, to her joy, he did ; inasmuch, you see, as he had 
his own reasons for a diplomatic silence. It would appear 
indeed, that recent great events had altogether banished 
from his memory the pious circumstances of his departure 
to them. He had returned to find his duchy as to all moral 


278 


A TALE OF ITALY 


279 


intents he had left and could have wished to recover it. 
The fashion of Nature had shed its petals with the summer 
brocades, and Milan was itself again. 

For the exquisite, who had set it, was vanished now some 
seven days gone ; and that is a long time for the straining 
out of a popular fashion. He had departed, carrying his 
Fool with him, none — save one or two in the secret — knew 
whither ; but surmise was plentiful, and for the most part 
rabid. That he had fallen out of home favor latterly was 
obvious and flagrant ; now, the report grew that this aliena- 
tion had received its flrst impetus from Piedmont. That 
whisper in itself was Nature’s very quietus. Eleven out of 
a dozen presumed upon it, and themselves, to propitiate 
tyranny with a very debauch of reactionism to old license. 
Moreover, scandal, in mere self-justification, must run intol- 
erable riot. Nothing was too gross for it in its accounting 
for this secession. The pure love which had striven to re- 
deem it, it tortured into a text for filthy slanders. The 
Countess of Caprona had her windows stoned in retaliation 
one day by a resentful crowd ; the wretched girl Lucia was 
dragged from her bed and suffocated in a muddy ditch. 
The logic of the mob. 

The most merciful of these tales represented Bembo as 
having run back to San Zeno, there to hide in terror and 
trembling his diminished head. It was the solution of 
things most comforting to Bona — one on which her con- 
science found repose. She wished the boy no evil ; had 
acted as she did merely in the interests of the State, she told 
herself. If, for a moment, her thoughts ever swerved to 
Tassino — now returned, as it was whispered, to his old 
quarters with the Provost Marshal, and abiding there 
a readjustment of affairs — she hid the treason under a 
lovely blush, and vowed herself forever more true wife and 
incorruptible. 

So for the most part all was satisfactory again ; and there 


28 o 


BEMBO 


remained only to alienate the popular sympathy from its 
idol. And that the Church undertook to do. The moment 
the false prophet was exposed and deposed, it rose, shook 
the crumbs from its lap, and gave him \\\s> coup de grace va 
the public estimation. 

“ He but sought,” it thundered, “ to turn ye over, clods ; 
to cleanse your gross soil for the fairer growing of his 
roses.” A parable : but so far comprehensible to the demos 
in that it implied its narrow escape from some cleaning pro- 
cess, a vindication of its prescriptive rights to go unwashed, 
and therefore convincing. Down sank the threatening 
swine-monster thereon; and, being further played upon with 
comfits of a festal Christmas-tide, did yield up incontinent 
its last breath of revivalism, and kick in joyful reassurance 
of its sty. 

50 the whole city absolved itself of redemption, and set to 
making enthusiastic provision for the devil’s entertainment 
against the season of peace and goodwill. 

51 finis bonus est, totwn bonum erit : nor less Bona bona 
erit. Only there was a rift within the happy wife’s lute, 
which somehow put the whole orchestra out of tune. She 
saw, for all her sweet chastened sense of relief, that the 
Duke was darkly troubled. The oppression of his mood 
communicated itself to hers ; and she began to dream — hor- 
rible visions of cloyed fingers, and clinging shrouds, and ropy 
cobwebs that would drop and lace her mouth and nostrils, 
the while she could not fight free a hand to clear them. 

Then, double-damned in his own depression, by reason of 
its reacting through his partner on himself, the Duke one 
day sent for the Provost Marshal. 

“The season claims its mercies,” gloomed he. “Take 
the boy out and send him home to his father.” 

“ His father ! ” jeered Jacopo brusquely, grunting in his 
beard. “ A ’s been safe in his bosom these three days.” 

. “ What ! ” gasped the tyrant. 


A TALE OF ITALY 


281 


‘ Dead, Messer, dead, that ’s all,” said the other impas- 
sively ; “ passed in a moment, like a summer shower.” 

There was nothing more to be said, then. As for poor 
Patch, he was too cheap a mend-conscience for the ducal 
mind even to consider. It took instead to brooding more 
and more on the drawn whiteness of its Duchess’s face, hat- 
ing and sickened by it, yet fascinated. The air seemed full 
of portents in its ghostly glimmer. His fingers were always 
itching to strike the hot blood into it. A loathly suspicion 
seized him that perhaps here, after all, was revealed the 
illusive face of his long haunting. Constantly he fancied he 
saw reflected in other faces about him some shadow of its 
menacing woe. Once he came near stabbing a lieutenant of 
his guards, one Lampugnani, for no better reason than that 
he had caught the fellow’s eyes fixed upon him. 

So the jovial season sped, and Christmas day was come 
and gone, bringing with it and leaving, out of conviviality, 
some surcease of his self-torment. 

But, on that holy night. Madonna Bona was visited by a 
dream, more ugly and more definite than any that had ter- 
rified her hitherto. Groping in a vast cathedral gloom, she 
had come suddenly upon a murdered body prostrate on the 
stones. Dim, shadowy shapes were thronged around ; the 
organ thundered, and at its every peal the corpse from a 
hundred hideous wounds spouted* jets of blood. She turned 
to run ; the gloating stream pursued her — rose to her hips, 
her lips — she awoke choking and screaming. 

That morning — it was St. Stephen’s Day — the Duke was 
to hear Mass in the private chapel of the castello. He rose 
to attend it, only to find that, by some misunderstanding, 
the court chaplain had already departed, with the sacred 
vessels, for the church dedicated to the Saint. The Bishop 
of Como, summoned to take his place, declined on the score 
of illness. Galeazzo decided to follow his chaplain. 

Bona strove frantically to dissuade him from going. He 


282 


BEMBO 


read some confirmation of his shapeless suspicions in her 
urgency, and was the more determined. She persisted ; he 
came near striking her in his fury, and finally drove her 
from his presence, weeping and clamorous. 

She was in despair, turning hither and thither, trusting 
no one. At length she bethought herself of an honest 
fellow, always a loyal friend and soldier of her lord, of 
whom, in this distracting pass, she might make use. She 
had spoken nothing to the Duke of her disposal of his favor- 
ite, Messer Danti, leaving the explanation of her conduct to 
an auspicious moment. Now, in her emergency, she sent a 
message for Carlo’s instant release, bidding him repair with- 
out delay to the palace. She had no reason, nor logic, nor 
any particular morality. She was in need, and lusting for 
help— that was enough. 

The messenger sped, and returned, but so did not the 
prisoner with him. Bona, sobbing, feverish, at the wit’s 
end of her resources, went from member to member of her 
lord’s suite, imploring each to intervene. As well ask the 
jackals to reprove the lion for his arrogance. 

At eleven the Duke set out. His valet and chronicler, 
Bernardino Corio, relates how, at this pass, his master’s 
behavior seemed fraught with indecision and melancholy ; 
how he put on, and then off, his coat of mail, because it 
made him look too stout ; how he feared, yet was anxious to 
go, because ‘ ‘ some of his mistresses ’ ’ would be expecting 
him in the church (the true explanation of his unharness- 
ing, perhaps) ; how he halted before descending the stairs ; 
how he called for his children, and appeared hardly able to 
tear himself away from them ; how Madonna Catherine ral- 
lied him with a kiss and a quip ; how at length, reluctantly, 
he left the castle on foot, but, finding snow on the ground, 
decided upon mounting his horse. 

Viva ! Viva ! See the fine portly gentleman come forth — 
tall, handsome, they called him — in his petti-cote of crimson 


A TALE OF ITALY 


283 


brocade, costly-furred and opened in front to reveal the 
doublet beneath, a blaze of gold-cloth torrid with rubies; 
see the flash and glitter that break out all over him, surface 
coruscations, as it were, of an inner Are ; see his face, 
already chilling to ashes, livid beneath the sparkle of its 
jewelled berretino ! Is it that his glory consumes himself? 
Viva ! Viva ! — if much shouting can frighten away the 
shadow that lies in the hollow of his cheek. It is thrown 
by one, invisible, that mounted behind him w^hen he 
mounted, and now sits between his greatness and the sun. 
Viva ! Viva ! So, with the roar of life in his ears, he passes 
on to the eternal silence. 

As he rides he whips his head hither and thither, each 
glance of this eyes a quick furtive stab, a veritable coup 
d'ceil. He is gnawed and corroded with suspicion, mortally 
7iervous — his manner lacks repose. It shall soon find it. 
He will make a stately recumbent figure on a tomb. 

The valet, after releasing his master’s bridle, has run on 
by a short cut to the church, where, at the door, he comes 
across Messers Lampugnani and Olgiati lolling arm in arm. 
They wear coats and stockings of mail, and short capes of red 
satin. Corio wonders to see them there instead of in their 
right places among the Duke’s escort. But it is no matter of 
his. There are some gentlemen will risk a good deal to 
assert their independence — or insolence. 

In the meanwhile, the motley crowd gathering, the 
Duke’s progress is slow. All the better for discussing him 
and his accompanying magnificence. He rides between the 
envoys of Ferrara and Mantua, a gorgeous nucleus to a 
brilliant nebula. This, after all, is more “filling” than 
Nature. Some one likens him, audibly, to the head of a 
comet, trailing glory in his wake. He turns sharply, with 
a scowl. “ Uh ! Come sta duro ! ” mutters the delinquent. 

“ Like a thunderbolt, rather ! ” 

At length he reaches the church door and dismounts. He 


284 


BEMBO 


throws his reins to a huge Moor, standing ready, and sets 
his lips. 

From within burst forth the strains of the choir : — 

^^Sic transit gloria mundiy 
Bowing his head, he passes on to his doom. 


CHAPTER XXV 

That being dead yet speaketh.^* 

T hrough the chiming stars, the romp of wind in 
woods, the gush of spring freshets, the cheery drone 
of bees ; through all happy gales — of innocent frolic, of 
children’s laughter, of sighing, unharmful passion, of joy 
and gaiety ungrudging ; through the associations of his gen- 
tle spirit with these, the things it had loved, whereby, by 
those who had listened and could not altogether forget, came 
gradually to be vindicated the truth of his kind religion ^ 
Bernardo’s voice, though grown a phantom voice, spoke on 
and echoed down the ages. Sweet babble at the hill-head, 
it was yet the progenitor of the booming flood which came 
to take the world with knowledge — knowledge of its own 
second redemption through the humanity which is born of 
Nature. Already Art, life’s nurse and tutor, was, unknown 
to itself, quickening from the embrace of clouds and sunlight 
and tender foliage ; while, unconscious of the strange des. 
tinies in its womb, it was scorning and reviling the little 
priest who had brought about that union. 

And, alas ! it is always so. Nor profit nor credit are ever 
to the pioneer who opens out the countries which are to 
yield his followers both. 

He perished very soon. Its third night of darkness and 
starvation saw the passing of that fragile spirit, gentle, in- 
nocuous, uncomplaining as it had lived. Frail as a bird that 
dies of the shock of capture he broke his heart upon a song. 

I would have no gloomy obsequies attend his fate. In 
tears, and strewing of flowers, and pretty plaintive dirges 

285 


286 


BEMBO 


of the fields — in sighs and lutes of love, such as waited on 
the sweet Fidele, would I have ye honor him. Not because 
I would belittle that piercing tragedy, but because he would. 
It was none to him. He but turned his face for home, sor- 
rowing only for his failure to win to his Christ, his comrade, 
a kingdom he should never have the chance to influence 
again. What had he else to fear? The star that had 
mothered, the road that had sped him? All grass and 
flowers was the latter ; of the first, a fore-ray seemed already 
to have pierced the darkness of his cell, linking it to heaven. 

“ ‘ het ’s sing him to the ground,’ 

‘ I cannot sing ; I ’ll weep, and word it with thee ; 

For notes of sorrow, out of tune, are worse 
Than priests and fanes that lie.’ ” 

Bring hither, I say, no passion of a vengeful hate. It is 
the passing of a rose in winter. 

At near the end, lying in his Fool’s arms, he panted 
faintly : 

“ My feet are weary for the turning. Pray ye, kind 
mother, that this road end soon.” 

“ What ! shall I hurry mine own damnation? ” gurgled 
the other (his tongue by then was clacking in his mouth). 

“ Trippingly, I warrant, shall ye take that path, unheed- 
ing of the poor wretch that lags a million miles behind 
lashed by a storm of scorpions. ’ ’ 

“ Marry, sweet,” whispered the boy, smiling ; “ I ’ll wait 
thee, never fear, when once I see my way. How could I 
forego such witness as thou to my brave intentions ? We ’ll 
jog the road together, while I shield thy back.” 

“Well, let be,” said Cicca. “Better they stung that, 
than my heart through thine arm” — whereat Bernardo 
nipped him feebly in an ecstasy of tears. 

In the first hours of their dreadful doom he was more full 
of wonder than alarm — astounded, in the swooning sense. 


A TALE OF ITALY 


287 


He had not come yet to realize the mortal nature of their 
punishment. How should he, innocent of harm ? Attribut- 
ing, as he did, this sudden blow to Bona, he marvelled only 
how so kind a mother could chastise so sharply for a little 
offence — or none. Indeed he was conscious of none ; 
though conscious enough, latterly, poor child, of an atmos- 
phere of grievance. Well, the provocation had been his, 
no doubt — somehow. He had learned enough of woman 
in these months to know that the measure of her resentment 
was not always the measure of thb fault — how she would 
sometimes stab deeper for a disappointment than for a 
wrong. He had disappointed her in some way. No doubt, 
his favor being so high, he had presumed upon it. A useful 
rebuke, then. He would bear his imposition manly ; but 
he hoped, he did hope, that not too much of it would be held 
to have purged his misconduct. The Duke was returning 
shortly. Perhaps he would plead for him. 

So sweetly and so humbly he estimated his own insignifi- 
cance. Could his foul slanderers have read his heart then, 
they had surely raved upon God, in their horror, to strike 
them, instant and forever, from the rolls of self-conscious 
existence. 

Cicada listened to him, and gnawed his knotted knuckles 
in the gloom, and wondered when and how he should dare 
to curse him with the truth. He might at least have spared 
himself that agony. The truth, to one so true, could not 
long fail of revealing itself. And when it came, lo! he wel- 
comed it, as always, for a friend. 

Small birds, small flowers, small wants perish of a little 
neglect. His sun, his sustenance, were scarce withheld a 
few hours from this sensitive plant before he began to droop. 
And ever, with the fading of his mortal tissues, the glow of 
the intelligence within seemed to grow brighter, until verily 
the veins upon his temples appeared to stand out, like mys- 
tic writing on a lighted porcelain lamp. 


288 


BEMBO 


So it happened that, as he and his companion were sitting 
apart on the filthy stones late on the noon of the second day 
of their imprisonment, he ended a long silence by creeping 
suddenly to the Fool’s knees, and looking up into the Fool’s 
face in the dim twilight appealed to its despair with a trem- 
ulous smile. 

“ Cicca,” he whispered, my Cicca ; wilt thou listen, and 
not be frightened ? ” 

“ To what? ” muttered the other hoarsely. 

“Hush, dear!” said the boy, fondling him, and whim- 
pering — not for himself. “ I have been warned — some one 
hath warned me — that it were well if we fed not our hearts 
with delusive hopes of release herefrom.” 

“ Why not? ” said the Fool. “ It is the only food we are 
like to have.” 

“Ah!” 

He clung suddenly to his friend in a convulsion of emotion. 

“You have guessed? It is true. Capello. We might 
have known, being here ; but — O Cicca ! are you sorry ? 
We have an angel with us — he spoke to us just now.” 

“Christ?” 

“ Yes, Christ, dearest.” 

The Fool, smitten to intolerable anguish, put him away, 
and, scrambling to his feet, went up and down, raving and 
sobbing : 

“The vengeance o God on this wicked race! May it 
fester in madness, living ; and, dead, go down to torment so 
unspeakable, that ” 

The boy, sprung erect, white and quivering, struck in : — 

“ Ah, no, no ! Think who it is that hears thee ! ” 

Cicada threw himself at his feet, pawing and lamenting : — 

“Thou angel ! O, woe is me ! that ever I was born to 
see this thing ! ’ ’ 

So they subsided in one grief, rocking and weeping 
together. 


A TALE OF ITALY 289 

“ O, sweet ! ” gasped the boy — “ that ever I were bom to 
bring this thing on thee ! ” 

Then, at that, the Fool wrapped him in his arms, ador- 
ing and fondling him, to a hurry of sighs and broken 
exclamations. 

“ On me ! — Child, that I am thought worthy ! — too great 
a joy — mightst have been alone — 3^et did I try to save thee — 
heaven’s mercy that, failing, I am involved” 

And so, easing himself for the first time, in an ecstasy of 
emotion he told all he knew about the fatal ring, and his 
efforts to recover it. 

Bernardo listened in wonder. 

“This ring!” he whispered at the end. “Right judg- 
ment on me for my wicked negligence. Why, I deserve to 
die. Yet — ” he clung a little closer — “ Cicca,” he thrilled, 
“ it is the Duke, then, hath committed us to this ? ” 

Cicada moaned, beating his forehead: 

“ Ay, ay! it is the Duke. So I kill thy last hope! ” 

“ Nay, thou reviv’st it.” 

“ How?” He stared, holding his breath. 

•“O, my dear!” murmured the boy rapturously ; “since 
thou acquittest her of this unkindness.” 

‘ ‘ Her ? Whom ? Unkindness ! ’ ’ cried the Fool. ‘ ‘ Expect 
nothing of Bona but acquiescence in thy fate.” 

“ Yet is she guiltless of designing it.” 

‘ ‘ Guiltless ? Ay, guiltless as she who, raving, ‘ That my 
shame should bear this voice, and none to silence it ! ’ accepts 
the hired midwife’s word that her womb hath dropped dead 
fruit! O! ” he mourned most bitterly, “ I loved thee, and I 
love ; yet now, I swear I wish thee dead! ” 

“ Then, indeed, thou lovest me. ” 

“ Had it come to this, in truth? ” 

“ Alas! I know not what you mean. My mother is my 
mother still.” 

“ Thy mother! I am thy mother.” 


290 


BEMBO 


“Ah!” I^aughing and weeping, he caught the gruff 
creature in his arms: — “ Cicca, that sweet, fond comedy! ” 

The other put him away again, but very gently, and rose 
to his feet. 

“ Comedy? ” he muttered; “ ay, a comedy — true — a masque 
of clowns. Yet, I’ve played the woman for thy sake.” 

Bernardo stared at him, his face twitching. 

“Thou hast, dear — so tragically — and in that garb! I 
would I could have seen thee in it. O! a churl to laugh, 
dear Cicca ; but ” 

“But what?” 

“ Thou^ a woman! ” 

He fell into a little irresistible chuckle. Strange wafts or 
tears and laughter seemed to sing in the drowsy chamber 
of his brain. 

“ Thou a woman! ” he giggled hysterically. 

The Fool gave a sudden cry. 

“ Why not ? Have I betrayed my child ? ” 

He turned, as if sore stricken, and went up and down, up 
and down, wringing his hands and moaning. 

Suddenly he came and threw himself on his knees before 
the boy, but away from him, and knelt there, rocking and 
protesting, his face in his hands. 

“ Ah! let me be myself at last. That disguise — thou 
mockest — ’t was none. Worn like a fool — mayhap — unprac- 
tised — yet could I have kissed its skirted hem. I am a 
woman, though a Fool — what’s odd in that? — a woman, 
dear, a woman, a woman! ” 

He bowed himself lower, lower, as if his shame were 
crushing him. In the deep silence that followed, Bernardo, 
trembling all through, crept a foot nearer, and paused. 

“ Mother,” cried the Fool, still crouching, his head deeper 
abased; “ no name for me. Cry on — cry scorn, in thy hun- 
ger, on this lying dam! No drop to cool thy drought in all 
her withered pastures.” 


A TALE OF ITALY 


291 


He writhed, and struck his chest, in pain intolerable. 

“ Mother! ” thrilled the boy, loud and sudden. 

The Fool gave a quick gasp, and started and shrunk away. 

“ Not I! Keep off! I am as Filippo made me — after his 
own image. He was a God — could name me man or woman. 
’T was but a word ; and lo! too hideous for my sex, I leapt, 
his male Fool. That, of all jests, was his first. He spared 
me for it. I had been strangled else.” 

“ Mother!” 

Again that moving, rapturous cry. 

“No, no!” cried the Fool. “Barren — barren — no 
woman, even! Still as God wrought me, and human taste 
condemned. Let be. Forget what I said. Let me go on 
and serve thee — sexless — only to myself confessing, not 
thou awarding. I ask no more, nor sweeter— O my babe, 
my babe! ” 

“Mother!” 

“Hush! break not my heart — not yet. This darkness? 
Speak it once more. Why, I might be beautiful. Will you 
think it — will you, letting me ply you with my conscious 
sweets? I could try. I’ve studied in the markets. Your 
starving rogue ’s the best connoisseur of savors. I ’ll not 
come near you — only sigh and soothe. I ’ll tune myself to 
speak so soft — school myself out of your knowledge. Per- 
chance, God helping, you shall think me fair.” 

“ Mother!” 

Once more — and he was in her arms. 

Surely the loveliest miracle that could have blossomed in 
that grave — a breaking of roses from the pilgrim’s dead 
staff! 

Henceforth Bernardo’s path was rapture — a song of love 
and jubilance — his spiri: iamed and trembled out in song. 

They had spared him his lute; and his fingers, strong in 
their instinct to the last, were seldom long parted from its 


292 


BEMBO 


strings. He lay much in his Fool mother’s lap; and one 
had scarcely known when their converse melted into music, 
or out of music into speech; so melodious was their love, so 
rapt their soul-union, and so triumphant over pain and dark- 
ness, as to evoke of fell circumstance its own balm-breathing, 
illuminating spirits. What was this horror of bleak, black 
burial, when at a word, a struck chord, one could see it 
quiver and break into a garden of splendid fancies! 

Once only was their dying exaltation recalled to earth — to 
consciousness of their near escape from all its hate and 
squalor. It happened in a moment ; and so shall suffer but 
a moment’s record. 

There came a sudden laugh and flare — and there was 
Tassino, torch in hand, looking from the grate above. 

“ Bhi, Messer Bembo!” yapped the cur; “art there? 
And I here? What does omnipotence in this reverse? 
Arise, and prove thyself. Bucia’s dead; the Duke’s re- 
turned; Milan is itself again. The memory of thee rots in 
the gutter; and stinks — fah! I go to the Duchess soon. 
What message to her, bastard of an Abbot? ” 

The boy raised his head. 

“ The season ’s, Tassino,” he whispered, smiling. “ Peace 
and goodwill.” 

The filthy creature mouthed and snarled. 

“Ay. Most sweet. I ’ll wait thine agony, though, be- 
fore I give it. She ’ll cry, then; and I shall be by; and, 
look you, emotion is the mother of desire. I ’ll pillow her 
upon thy corpse, bastard, and quicken her with new lust of 
wickedness. She ’ll never have loved me more. God! what 
a use for a saint ! ’ ’ 

Cicada crawled, and rose, from under her sweet burden. 

“ Wait,” she hissed; “ the grate ’s open. A strong leap, 
and I have him.” 

An idle threat; but enough to make the whelp start, and 
clap to the bars, and fly screaming. 


A TALE OF ITALY 


293 


The Fool returned, panting, to her charge. 

“ Forget him,” she said. 

“ I have forgotten him, my mother. But his lie ” 

“Yes?” 

“ Was it a lie?” 

“About Bona?” I am a woman now. I’ll answer 
nothing for my sex.” 

“ I ’ll answer for her. About my father, I meant.” 

“ As thou ’It answer for her, so will I for him.” 

Bernardo sighed, and lay a long while silent. Suddenly 
he moaned in her arms, like a child over-tired, and spoke 
the words already quoted: — “ My feet are weary for the 
turning.” 

“Death is Love’s seed— a sweet child quickened of our- 
selves. He comes to us, his pink hands full of flowers. 
‘See, father, see, mother,’ says he, ‘the myrtles and the 
orange blooms which made fragrant your bridal bed. I am 
their fruit — the full maturity of Love’s promise. Will you 
not kiss your little son, and come with him to the wise gar- 
dens where he ripened? ’T is cold in this dark room! ’ ” 

So, in such rhapsodies, “ in love with tuneful death,” 
would he often murmur, or melt, through them, into song 
as strange. 

“ Love and Forever would wed. 

Fearless in Heaven’s sight. 

Life came to them and said, 

* Lease ye my house of light! * 

“ He put them on earth to bed. 

All in the noonday bright: 

‘ Sooth,’ to Forever Love said, 

‘ Here may we prosper right.’ 

“Sudden, day waned and fled: 

Truth saw Forever in night. 

‘We are deceived,’ he said; 

‘ Who shall pity our plight ? * 


294 


BEMBO 


“ Death, winging by o’erhead, 

Heard them moan in afiright. 

‘Hold by my hem,’ he said; 

‘ I go the way to light.’ ” 

All the last day Cicada held him in her arms, so quiet, so 
motionless, that the gradual running down of his pulses was 
steadily perceptible to her. She felt Death stealing in, like 
a ghostly dawn — watched its glowing glimmer with a fierce, 
hard-held agony. Once, before their scrap of daylight failed 
them, she stole her wrist to her mouth, and bit at it secretly, 
savagely, drawing a sluggish trickle of red. She had 
thought him sunk beyond notice of her ; and started, and 
hid away the wound, as he put up a gentle, exhausted arm, 
detaining hers. 

“ Sting’st thyself, scorpion? ” 

Cicada gave a thick crow — merciful God ! it was meant for 
a laugh — and began to screak and mumble some legend of a 
bird that, in difiBcult times, would bleed itself to feed its 
young — a most admirable lesson from Nature. The child 
laughed in his turn — poor little croupy mirth — and answered 
with a story : how the right and left hands once had a dis- 
pute as to which most loved and served the other, each 
asserting that he would cut himself off in proof of his devo- 
tion. Which being impracticable, it was decided that the 
right should sever the left, and the left the right ; whereof 
the latter stood the test first without a wince. But, lo! 
when it came to the left’s turn, there was no right hand to 
carve him. 

‘ ‘ Anan? ’ ’ croaked Cicada sourly. 

“ Why,” said Bernardo, “ we will exchange the wine of 
our veins, if you like, to prove our mutual devotion ; but, if 
I suck all thine first, there will be no suck left in thy lips to 
return the compliment on me.” 

“ Need’st not take all ; but enough to handicap thee, so 
that we start this backward journey on fair terms.” 


A TALE OF ITALY 


295 

''Nay, it were so sweet, I ’d prove a glutton did I once 
begin. Cicca?” 

" My babe?” 

" Canst thou see Christ? ” 

" Ay, in the white mirror of thy face.” 

" I see Him so plain. He stands behind thee now — a boy, 
mine own age. Nay, He puts His finger on His sweet lips, 
and smiles and goes. ' Naughty,’ that means: ‘shall I stay 
to hear thee flatter me ? ’ He blushes, like a boy, to be 
praised. He ’s gone no further than the wall. Cicca, thy 
disguise was deep. I never thought thee beautiful before. O, 
what an unkind mother, to hide her beauty from her boy!” 

"Ami beautiful?” 

' ‘ Dost not know it ? As the moon that rises on the night. 
It was night just now, and my soul was groping in the 
dark; and, lo! of a sudden thou wert looking down.” 

‘ ‘ Let it be night, I say 1 ’ ’ 

'‘ What is that in thy voice ? I am so happy — always ; 
only not when I think of Carlo. My dear, dear Carlo! 
Alas! what have they done with him? He will often think 
of us, and wonder where we are, and frown and gnaw 
his lip. If I could but hear him speak once more — cry 
'Bernardo! ’ in that voice that made one’s eyeballs crack 
like glass, and tickle in their veins. O, my sweet Carlo! 
Mother, have I failed in everything ? ” 

'‘ Let be! Thou ’It kill me with thy prattle. Thy Christ 
remains behind. He ’ll see thy seed is honored in its 
fruits.” 

'* Well, wilt thou kiss me good-night ? I’m sleepy.” 

He seemed to doze a good deal after that. But, about 
midnight, it might be, he suddenly sat up, and was singing 
strongly to his lute — a sweet, unearthly song, of home-re- 
turning and farewell. Cicada clung and held him, held to 
him, pierced all through with the awful rapture of that 
moment. 


296 


BEMBO 


“ I^eave me not: wait for me! ” she whispered, sobbing. 

Suddenly, in a vibrating pause, a faint far cry was wafted 
to their ears : 

‘ ‘ Bernardo ! Bernardo I ’ ’ 

The fingers tumbled on the lute, plucking its music into a 
tangle of wild discords. A string snapped. 

“ Carlo! ” he screamed — “ it is Carlo! ” 

The cry leapt, and fell, and eddied away in a long rosary 
of echoes. The Fool fumbled for his lips with hers. 

But who might draw death from that sweet frozen spring! 

She feared nothing now but that they would come and 
take him from her — snarled, holding him, when her one sick 
glint of daj’’ stole in to cross her vigil — was in love with utter 
solitude and blind night. Once, after a little or a long time 
— it was all one to her — she saw a thread of ghostly white- 
ness moving on the floor ; watched it with basilisk eyes; 
thought, perhaps, it was his soul, lingering for hers accord- 
ing to its promise. The moving spot came on — stole into 
the wan, diffused streak of light cast from the grating; — and 
it was a great rat, with something bound about its neck. 

She understood on the instant. Tong since, her instinctive 
wit had told her — though she had not cared or been con- 
cerned to listen to it — that that sudden voice in the darkness 
had signified that Carlo was imprisoned somewhere hard by. 
Well, he had found this means to communicate with her — 
near a miracle, it might be ; but miracles interested her no 
longer. No harm to let him know at last. He could not 
rob her of her dead. 

She coaxed the creature to her ; found him tame; read 
the message; re-fastened on the paper, and, by its glimmer, 
marked the way of his return. 

Then she rose, and spoke, and, speaking, choked and died. 

In the dark all cats are gray, and all women beautiful. 
But I think the countenance of this one had no need to fear 
the dawn. 


CHAPTER XXVI 


A mongst all her costly possessions in the Casa Cap- 
rona, there had once been none so loved, so treasured, 
so often consulted by Beatrice as a certain portrait of the 
little Parablist of San Zeno, which she had bought straight 
from the studio of its limner, Messer Antonello da Messina, 
at that time temporarily sojourning in Milan. This was the 
artist, pupil of Jan Van Eyck, who had been the first to 
introduce oil-painting into Italy ; and the portrait was exe- 
cuted in the new medium. It was a work perpetrated con 
amove — one of the many in which the exaltation of the 
moment had sought to express itself in pigments, or marble, 
or metal. For, indeed, during that short spring of his 
promise, Bernardo’s flower-face had come to blossom in half 
the crafts of the town. 

Technically, perhaps, a little wan and flat, the head owed 
something, nevertheless, to inspiration. Through the mere 
physical beauty of its features, one might read the sorrow of 
a spiritual incarnation — the wistfulness of a Christ-converted 
Eros of the ancient cosmogonies. Here were the right faun’s 
eyes, brooding pity out of laughter ; the rather square jaw, 
and girlish pointed chin ; the baby lips that seemed to have 
kissed themselves, shape and tint, out of spindle-berries ; 
the little strutting cap and quill even, so queerly contrasted 
with the staid sobriety of the brow beneath. It was the boy, 
and the soul of the boy, so far as enthusiasm, working 
through a strange medium, could interpret it. 

Beatrice, having secured, had hung the picture in a dim 
297 


298 


BEMBO 


alcove of her chamber ; and had further, to insure its jeal- 
ous privacy from all inquisition but her own, looped a curtain 
before. Here, then, a dozen times a day, when alone, had 
she been wont to pra5’’ and confess herself; lust with her 
finger-tips to charm the barren contours of the face into life ; 
lay her hot cheek to the painted flesh, and weep, and woo, 
and appeal to it; seek to soften by a hundred passionate 
artifices the inflexible continence of its gaze. 

But that had been all before the shock and frenzy of her 
final repulse. Not once since had she looked on it, 
until . . . 

Came upon her, still crouching self-absorbed, that white 
morning of the Duke’s tragedy ; and, on the vulture wings 
of it, Narcisso. 

The beast crept to her, fulsome, hoarse, shaken with a 
heart-ague. She conned him with a contemptuous curi- 
osity, as he stood unnerved, trembling all through, before 
her. 

“ Well ? ” she said at last. 

He grinned and gobbled, gulping for articulation. 

“ It ’s come. Madonna.” 

She half rose on her couch, frowning and impatient. 

“ What, thou sick fool ? ” 

“ Sick ! ” he echoed loudly ; and then his voice fell again. 

Ay, sick to death, I think. The Duke ” 

“What of him?” 

“ Rides to San Stefano.” 

“ Does he?” 

“ He ’ll not ride home again.” 

She stared at him in silence a moment ; then suddenly 
breathed out a little wintry laugh. 

“So?” she whispered — “So? Well, thou art not the 
Duke.” 

He struggled to clear, and could not clear, his throat. 
His low forehead, for all the cold, was beaded with sweat. 


A TALE OF ITALY 


299 

“ All one for that,” he muttered thickly. “ There ’s no 
class in carrion.” 

She still conned him, with that frigid smile on her lips. 

“ Dost mean they ’ll seek to kill thee too ? ” 

He clawed at his head in a frenzy. 

“ Ay, I mean it.” 

“Why?” 

“ Why ? quotha. Why, won’t they have held me till this 
moment for one of themselves? ” 

“ Till this moment? ” she murmured. “ Ah ! I see ; this 
Judas who hath not the courage to play out his part.” 

“My part!” He almost screamed it at last. “Was 
death my part? ” He writhed and snuffled. “ I tell thee, 
I ’ve but now left them, on pretence of going before to 
the church. Shall I be there? God’s death ! Let but this 
stroke win through and gain the people, and my life ’s not 
worth a stinking sprat.” 

She sank back with a sigh. 

“ Better, in that case, to have joined thy friends at San 
Stefano.” 

The rogue, staring at her a moment, uttered a mortal 
cry : 

“ Thou say’st it — thou? — ^Judas? — Who made me so? — 
Show me my thirty pieces — Judas? Ay; and what for 
wages? — thy tool and catspaw — I see it all at last — thine 
and Ludovic’s — bled, and my carcass thrown to swine! — 
Judas? Why, I might have been Judas to some purpose 
with the Duke — a made man by now. And all for thee 
foregone ; and in the end by thee betrayed. I asked nothing 
— gave all for nothing — ass — goose — cried quack and quack, 
as told — decoy to these fine fowl, and, being used, my neck 
wrung with the rest. Now ” 

She put up a hand peremptorily. The fury simmered 
down on his lips. 

“You presume, fellow,” she said. / betray thee f ” 


300 


BEMBO 


She raised her brows, amazed. Too stupendous an in- 
stance of condescension, indeed. 

He slunk down on his knees before her, cringing and 
praying. 

“No, Madonna, no ! I spake out of my great madness.” 

“Answer me,” she said disdainfully, “out of thy little 
reason. What wouldst thou of me ? ’ ’ 

He lifted his shaking hands. 

“ Sanctuary, sanctuary. Let me hide here.” 

He crawled to her, pawing like a beaten dog. 

“ Sanctuary,” he reiterated brokenly. “You owe it me 
— that at least. I ’ve bided, bided — and ye made no sign — 
yielded all for guerdon of a sweet word, the whiles I thought 
thyself and Ludovic were stalking that conspiracy to cut 
it off betimes. God’s death ! Not you. And now I know 
the reason. Now comes the reckoning, and I ’m left to face 
it as I will. God’s death ! ” His panic mastered him again. 

‘ ‘ What of my substance have I changed for nothing ! 
There was Bona’s ring — I might have lived ten year on ’t. 
And I parted with it — for what ? O, you ’re a serpent, mis- 
tress ! You worm your way — and get it too. What? Bona 
may bide a little, and Simonetta ? They ’re but the bleeding 
trunk. The head’s lopped while I talk.” 

His voice rose to a screech — broke — and he grovelled 
before her. 

“ Mercy, Madonna ! Spare me to be thy slave. All 
comes thy way — love, and revenge, and power. The boy ’s 
dead — the Duke ’s to die ” 

He had roused her at last, and in 'a flash. She sprang to 
her feet, white, hardly breathing. 

“ The boy ? ” she hissed ; “ what boy ? ” 

He whimpered, sprawling : 

‘ ‘ God a’ mercy ! Lady, lady ! the boy, the very boy you 
sped the ring to kill.” 

“ Dead I ” she whispered. 


A TALE OF ITALY 


301 


“ Ay,” he snivelled from the ground ; “ what would you ? 
dead as last Childermas — starved to death, in the ‘ Hermit’s 
Cell,’ they call it, by the Duke’s orders.” 

Her fingers battled softly with her throat. 

“ Dead ! ” she said again. ” Narcisso, good Narcisso, who 
hath gulled thee with this lie ? ” 

“ No lie,” he answered, squatting, reassured, on his hams. 
” ’Twas Messer Tassino, no less, that carried thy token 
to Vigevano. ’Twas no later than yesternight I met our 
fine cockerel louping from the stews. A’ was drunk as 
father Noah — babbled and blabbed, a’ did — perked up a’s 
comb, and cursed me for presuming fellowship with a duke’s 
minion. I plied him further, e’en to tears and confidence — 
had it all out of him ; how a’d carried the ring for Messer 
Ludovic, and brought back the deadly order. Jacopo nipped 
the Saint that noon. A’s singing in paradise these days 
past.” 

Beatrice stood and listened. 

A dreadful smile was on her lips But, when she spoke, 
it was with wooing softness. 

” Good trust — always the faithful trust. Why, Narcisso, 
what should I do betraying thee ? We’ll work and end to- 
gether, and take our wages. Dead, do you say? Why, 
then, all ’s said. Now go, and tuck thyself within the roof 
till the storm pass. This lightning ’s all below. Go, com- 
rade, do you hear? ” 

He dwelt a moment only to gasp and mumble out his 
thanks ; then turned and slouched away. 

For minutes she dwelt as he had left her, rigid, smiling, 
bloodless. Presently, still standing motionless, she moved 
her lips and was muttering : 

“Dead? So swift? Made sure against all chances? 
Starved? He said starved. Not to that I betrayed him. 
Inhuman hound ! Thou mightst have spared him bread I 
— left sorrow and cold durance to work their lingering end. 


302 


BEMBO 


What then ? Why, Bona then — Bona made widow ; free to 
work her will. Should 1 be the better ? — Dead ? was he not 
always dead to me ? Starved to death ! O, hell heat Eam- 
pugnani’s dagger scarlet, that it hiss and bubble in his 
flesh ! Galeazzo ! Galeazzo ! I ’ll follow soon to nurse thy 
pains to ecstasy ! ’ ’ 

She fell silent ; presently began to sway ; then, with a 
sudden shriek, had leapt upon the picture and torn aside 
its curtain. 

“Bernardo!” she moaned and sobbed — “ Bernardo I 
loved thee ! O God I he eats me with his eyes. Here, 
here I fasten with thy starved lips. I ’ll not speak or cry, 
though they burrow to my heart. All thine — hold on — I’ll 
smile and pet mine agony — Bernardo ! ” 

In the tumult of her passion she heard a sound at the 
door ; caught her breath ; caught herself to knowledge of 
herself, and, instinctively closing the curtain, stood panting, 
dishevelled, its hem in her hand. 

Some one, something, had entered — a haggard, unshorn 
ghost of ancient days. It came very softly, closing the door 
behind; then, set and silent, moved upon her. Her pulses 
seemed to sink and wither. 

‘ ‘ Carlo 1 ’ ’ she shuddered softly. 

It was fearful that the thing never spoke as it came on. 
Nor did she speak again. Dove that has once joined keeps 
understanding without words. What has it bred but death ? 
Here was the natural fruit of a sin matured — she saw it 
gleam suddenly in his clutch. 

She watched fascinated. As he drew near, without a 
word she slowly raised her hands, and rent from her bosom 
its already desecrated veil. Then at last she spoke — or 
whispered: — 

“I’m ready. Here’s where you kissed and sighed. 
Bloody thy bed.” 

He took her to his remorseless grasp. She had often 


A TALE OF ITALY 


303 


thrilled to know her helplessness therein — wondered what it 
would be to feel it closed in hate. Now she had her know- 
ledge — and instantly, in an ecstasy of terror, succumbed 
to it. 

“ No, no ! ” she gasped. Carlo, don’t kill me ! ” 

Voiceless still, he raised his hand. She gave a fearful 
scream. 

I never meant it. I’m innocent. Not without a word. 
Carlo ! Carlo ! — I loved him ! ” 

Writhing in her agony, she tore herself free a moment, and 
sank at his feet, rending, as she fell, the curtain from its 
rings. His back was to the wall. In a mirror opposite he 
caught the sudden vision of his intent, and, looking down 
upon it, dim and spiritual, the sweet face of the Saint. 

The dagger dropped from his hand. 

The silence of a minute seemed to draw into an age. 
Suddenly he was groping and stumbling like a drunken 
man. Words came to him in babble : — 

“Let be! — I’ll go — spare her? — Where’s thy Christ? 
He forgave too — I ’m coming — answer for me — here ! ” 

And he drove a staggering course from the room. 

Tears began to gush from her as she lay prone. Then 
suddenly, in a quick impulse, she rose to her feet, and re- 
veiling the picture, turned with her back to it. 

“ Ludovic remains,” she whispered. 

Reeling, dancing, to himself it seemed. Carlo passed down 
the streets. White was on the ground; his brain was thick 
with whirling flakes ; the roar of coming waters tingled in 
his veins. Sometimes he would pause and look stupidly at 
his right hand, as if in puzzle of its emptiness. There 
should have been something there — what was it ? — a knife — 
a stone for two birds — Beatrice — and then Galeazzo. What 
had he omitted ? He must go back and pick up the thread 
from the beginning. 


304 


BEMBO 


The waters came on as he stood, not close yet, but por- 
tentous, with a threatening roar. A crying shape, waving 
a bloody blade, sped towards and past him. 

“ Arm, arm, for liberty ! ” it yelled as it ran. “ Tyranny 
is dead ! 

Carlo chuckled thickly to himself. 

“That was Olgiati. What does he with my dagger? 
I ’ll go and take it from him.” 

He turned, swaying, and in the act was swept upon, envel- 
oped, and washed over by the torrent. It stranded him 
against the wall, where he stood blinking and giggling in 
the vortex of a multitudinous roar. 

“ Murdered ! the Duke ! Murdered ! Close the gates ! ” 

It thundered on and away. He looked at his hand once 
more ; then turned for home. 


CHAPTER XXVII 


M urdered ? Ay ; struck down in a moment on the 
threshold of God’s house, lest his bloody footsteps 
entering should desecrate its pavement ; snatched away to 
perdition from under the very shadows of stone saints, the 
gleam of the golden doors fading out of the horror of his 
fading eyes. He had had but time for one cry, “O Mother 
of God ! ’ ’ — a soul-clutch as wild as when a drowning man 
grasps at a flowering reed. In vain ; he is under ; the fair 
blossom whisks erect again, dashing the tears from her eyes ; 
the white face far below is a stone among the stones. 

“ So passeth the world * s glory / ” 

The choir sang, the organ thundered on ; and still their 
blended fervor, while the dead body was relaxing and set- 
tling into the pool itself had made, rose poignant, sharper, 
more unearthly, piercing with tragic utterance its own bur- 
den, until at length, flood crashing upon flood, the roar of 
human passion below burst and overwhelmed it. 

What had happened ? 

This. 

As the Duke entered the church by the west door, a full- 
bodied gentleman, dressed all in mail, with a jaque of crim- 
son satin, had stepped from the crowd to make a way for 
him ; which having affected to do, he had turned, and 
raising his velvet beret with his left hand, and dropping on 
one knee as if to crave some boon, had swiftly driven a 
dagger into Galeazzo’s body, and again, as the Duke fell 
away from the stroke, freeing the blade, into his throat. 

305 


3o6 


BEMBO 


Whereat, springing on the mortal cry that followed, flew 
other sparks of crimson from the body of the spectators, and 
pierced the doomed man with vicious stings, laboring out 
cries as they stabbed : — 

“ For my sister ! ” 

For liberty ! ” — until the hilts slipping in their fingers 
sent their aims wavering. 

It was all the red act of a moment — the lancing of a 
ripened abscess — the gush, the scream, the silence. 

And then, the sudden stun and stupefaction yielding to 
mad tumult. 

None might know the gross body of this terror ; only for 
the moment red coats and their partisans seemed paramount. 
The next, the scarlet clique seemed to break up and scatter, 
like a ball of red clay in a swirl of waters, and, flying on all 
sides, was caught and held in isolated particles among the 
throng. Whereat, for the first time, authority began to feel 
its paralyzed wits, and to counter-shriek the desperate 
appeals of murder to rally and combine for liberty. A 
mighty equerry of the Duke, one da Ripa, fought, bellowing 
and struggling, to pull out his sword. Francione, a fellow 
of Visconti ’s, stabbed him under the armpit, and he wobbled 
and dropped amid the screaming crush, grinning horribly. 
Tampugnani, smiling and insinuative, slipped into a wailing 
group of women, and urged his soft passage through it, 
making for the door. He was almost out when, catching 
his foot in a skirt plucked sickly from his passing, he stum- 
bled and rolled ; and the spear of a giant Moor, who on the 
instant mounted the steps, passed through his throat. 

His body was first-fruits to the frenzied people without. 

They seized and bowled it through the street, whacking 
it into shreds; then returned, breathed and blooded, for 
more. They were in high feather, ripe for prey and plunder. 
Galeazzo was dead ! Viv’ Anarchia ! 

They pressed their way into the tumult ; snatched gems 


A TALE OF ITALY 


307 


and trinkets from the hair and bosoms of girls half mad with 
terror ; took their brief toll of dainties, and only fell away, 
pushing and grabbing, before the onset of the ducal guard. 

Order followed presently ; and then the tally and reckon- 
ing. The last fell swift enough to crown an orgy of perfec- 
tion : screams in the squares ; dismembered limbs ; mangled 
scarecrows tossing in file from the battlements. Only two 
principals, Olgiati and Visconti, escaping for the moment, 
were reserved for later torment. 

A conspiracy, like near all blood conspiracies, abortive ; 
founded on the common error that slaves abhor their bonds. 
They do not, in this world of unequal gifts and taxes. 
Moreover, it is inconsistent to suppose one can inaugurate 
an era of tolerance with murder. 

Olgiati, the last of that dark band to suffer, was also its 
only martyr. He had struck for a principle, straight in itself, 
oblique in its fanatic workings. Cursed by his father, aban- 
doned by his friends and relatives, committed to unspeakable 
tortures, his courage never blenched or wavered. He 
gloried in his deed to the last; and, if a prayer escaped him, 
it was only that his executioners should vouchsafe him 
strength at the end to utter forth his soul in prayer. To 
Bona he sent a gentle message, deprecating his own instru- 
mentality in the inevitable retributions of Providence. She 
answered, saintly vengeance, with a priest, urging him to 
save his soul by penitence. He retorted that, by God’s 
mercy, his final deed should serve his sins for all atonement ; 
and, so insisting, was carried to his mortal mangling. At 
the last moment a cry escaped him : “ Mors acerba : fama 
perpetual” and, with that, and the shriek of “Courage, 
Girolamo ! ” on his lips, he passed to his account. 

“ The peace of Italy is dead ! ” cried Pope Sixtus on the 
day when the news of the crime was brought to him. His 
prophecy found its first justification in a fervent appeal from 
the Duchess of Milan that he would posthumously absolve 


3o8 


BEMBO 


of his sins the man whom “ next to God she had loved above 
all else in the world.” , 

And no doubt, being left to the present mercy of factions, 
she believed it. 


BPII.OGUB 


L ong after the body of that tragedy had been committed 
to its eternal sleep, silently and by night, under the 
pavement of the vast cathedral ; long after, in years so re- 
mote that the very bones of it, crumbling into ashes, might 
hardly be distinguished from the fibrous weeds of the golden 
shroud in which they had first been laid, fit moral to the 
deadly irony of human glory ; long after, when the rise and 
fall of lyudovico Sforza, ripe achievement of his house and 
race, were already grown a tale for the wind to sob and 
whisper through lonely keyholes of a winter’s night, there 
survived in Bombard legend the story of a marvellous boy, 
who, coming to earth and Milan once upon a time with 
some strange message of Christ in Arcady, had taken the 
winter in men’s hearts with a brief St. Martin’s summer 
of delight, and had so, in the bright morning of his promise, 
been snatched back to the heaven’s nursery from which he 
had estrayed, leaving faint echoes of divinity in his wake. 
It whispered of a tomb, to which old tyranny had consigned 
this embodied angel, found emptied, like its sacred proto- 
type’s; and of the awe thereat which had fallen on the 
searchers. A fable, scared away at first in the strenuous 
roar of Time struggling for the mastery of great events ; yet, 
in the later day of peace, still to be heard, very faint and far, 
like a lark’s song, dropping from the clouds. 

Sweet music, but a fable ; and therefore more potent than 
reality to move men’s hearts. Beatitudes are pronounced 
on things less tangible. Had Bernardo preached a creed 

309 


310 


BEMBO 


more orthodox, he had been at this day a calendared saint 
on the strength of it. But he had only interpreted the 
human Christ to a people his prince and comrade had 
wrought to redeem. 

There had been those who — unless crushed under the fall 
of the tyranny which had sustained them — might have 
nipped the legend at its sprouting ; telling how, on the night 
of that first dark and dire confusion, a cavalier, taking ad- 
vantage of the brief anarchy that reigned, had appeared, 
with a force of his adherents, before the provost-marshal of 
that date, and had demanded of his hands the body of the 
martyred boy ; how, kissing and wrapping the poor corpse 
in a costly cloak, this cavalier had lifted it with giant strength 
to his pommel, and, dismissing his silent followers, had rid- 
den forth with his burden into the snowy darkness of the 
plains ; how, in the ghostly dawn of a winter’s morning, 
there had broken tears and wailing from a spectral throng 
gathered about the portal of an abbey in the distant hills ; 
how, when presently the spring came with music of birds 
and gushing waters, there were no turves so green, no 
daisies so lush and fearless in all the monastic God’s-acre, 
as those which the heart-stricken sorrow and tenderness of 
a newly received brother had brought to cover the grave of 
one, the youngest and most innocent of all the silent com- 
munity gathered thereto. 

God rest thee. Carlo ! Peace to thy faithful, passionate 
heart. 

An imperishable love, whose fruits, descended from the 
ancient stock, we eat to-day. 

But the body of the Fool, flung into a pit, was the 
carrion which first enriched its roots. 


TH® ^ND. 






■ 


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MY 23 




Deacidified using the Bookkeeper process. 
Neutralizing Agent: Magnesium Oxide 
Treatment Date: 



b 


JUL 1996 

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PRESERVATION TECHNOLOGIES 
1 1 1 Thomson Park Drive 
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